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A GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL 

SKETCH 




19 11 



Louise Wilhelmina Mears, Ed. B. 

Head of Geography Detartment 

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL 

Peru, Nebraska 






Copyright, 1911 by 
Louise Wilhelmina Mears. 



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)CI.A30047G 



THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE CLASS 
OF 1895 N. S. N. S., THAT TRAMPED OVER 
THE HILLS OF PERU FOR YEARS IN SEARCH 
OF WILD FLOWERS, INSECTS CREEPING AND 
FLYING, LAND AND WATER BIRDS, ROCKS 
AND RARE FOSSILS. 



PRESS OF 

KLOPP & BARTLETT CO. 
Omaha, Nebr. 



&able of Contents; 



INTRODUCTION. 

Out of Doors ix Peru. 



CHAPTER I. 
Peru in Steamboat Days.; 



CHAPTER II. 
Indian Hill. 



CHAPTER III. 
The Lost Landmark. 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Mill and Other Pioneer Pictures. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Pioneers — Whence and Whither. 



CHAPTER VI. 
An Indian Story. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SUNBONNET DAYS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

1870—1911 



No^h 




■Ind 



ex- 

tlriKcsT&aK 

2, Indian H.I) 

3. The Crec?K 
4T2>st Office 
5. Z3epor 

<j Z H DaaeSchoei 
8ZCV .(xmve's T?es. 

2/ HE Church 
J 2 State No vma) 
J3 1 c/ Cemetery 
if W Vernon '/ 

/SGreffnWIiD 



ua South 



preface. 




HE fact that Peru and its 
environs are unusually rich in 
geographic material, led me 
to prepare several sketches to 
be used in the study of local geog- 
raphy. These chapters, which in order 
to be accessible to Peru students ap- 
peared in the Normalite, 1910-11, were 
the beginning of what has developed 
into this small book on Peru. The 
geographical and historical develop- 
ment could not well be separated, and 
the pioneer period especially has re- 
ceived prominence. This book does not 
make any claims, however, to be a 
history of Peru. Considering the hun- 
dreds of young people who annually 
make Peru their temporary home, and 
the larger number that have gone out 
from its classic shades, a handbook of 
the village and the picturesque walks 

IX 



PREFACE 

and drives about it may serve as a guide 
and a reminder to them. 

My debt of gratitude to the pioneers 
themselves is great for information gen- 
erously given. Especially do I wish to 
acknowledge my indebtedness to Messrs. 
D. C. Cole, Dr. J. F. Neal, Col. T. J. 
Majors, Abner Carlisle, William Phelps } 
Sylvester Reed, W. W. Whitfield, 
George Hey wood and Major William 
Daily; Mesdames, Charles Neal, D. C. 
Cole, Richard Vance, Arthur Brunsdon, 
H. M. Mears and Jarvis Church; also 
to Robert Harvey, Vice President Ne- 
braska Historical Society, Mrs. S. W. 
McGrew, Secretary Nemaha County 
Historical Society, Miss Eleanor Lally, 
Dr. Homer C. House, Prof. H. B. 
Duncanson and Prof. C. R. Weeks 
of the Nebraska State Normal School, 
Peru, Nebraska. 

July 1, 1911 




Snttobuctton. 

Out of Doors In Peru. 

'OR those who have ever 
climbed one of Peru's hills , 
or looked out from the win- 
dows of the Normal School, 
or taken in the beauty from the tower, 
the words of this brief sketch are all un- 
necessary, unless perchance, to awaken 
fond recollections of a panorama that 
the pen can put poorly portray and 
memory can never let go. Those who 
have been initiated will all agree that 
no one can offer a fair estimate of Peru 
who has not looked out from the top of 
one of the many hills among which the 
village lies. 

The experienced traveler, wherever 
he may be, hastens to find the highest 
point of land from which to get his 
bearings in a new country. If he is in 
Paris, he climbs to the top of Eiffel 
Tower, perhaps, and there with map in 
hand, he takes a bird's-eye view of the 

XI 



INTRODUCTION 

Seine with its many windings, and the 
extensive forest of the famous Bois de 
Boulogne, but— incredible as the state- 
ment may seem— all that he may see in 
this French landscape does not surpass 
the beauty that awaits one who looks 
out from Pike's Peak or Mt. Vernon 
Hill at Peru, when the lights of morning 
or evening outline the distant hills. 

Standing on Pike's Peak, one sees to 
the north the fertile flood plain at the 
foot of the westward curving hills, 
where cattle graze and rich crops grow. 
The river makes a mighty bend to the 
east around these acres of rich bottom- 
land, but they are nevertheless the 
river's own, to which it lays claim year 
by year. Diagonally across the level 
land extends the Burlington Railroad, 
and yet another and newer construction 
is the drainage ditch, which connects 
Buck Creek and Camp Creek with the 
Missouri River. Here in winter the 
Peru boys and girls emulate the Dutch 
children skating upon the canals. 

Along the river banks, in thick stands 
the willows grow, the little pussy- 

XII 



INTRODUCTION 

willow and the larger black willow. At 
a distance their dense green leafage 
suggests a more enduring forest than 
this plant of rapid growth, that springs 
up in a season to take possession of 
newly made river-banks and island bars. 
Nature makes use of this plant with its 
matted net-work of roots to hold the 
soft sands. Man employs it for rip- 
rapping along the banks. The width of 
the river is not readily determined by 
the observer, for wooded islands are 
easily mistaken for the opposite shore. 
Nor does the old river betray any sug- 
gestion of its mighty current, seeming 
often as calm as the sleeping giant of 
old. Well does the old timer of Peru 
know the danger of toying with its 
treacherous waters, and his life is quite 
apart from it now that steamboats no 
longer call him to its shores. Many 
have forgotten where the boat-landing 
used to be and the row of ware-houses 
along the water front, swallowed up by 
the river moiethan a quarter of a cen- 
tury ago. The farther the eye travels 
across the river, the more beautiful the 

XIII 



INTRODUCTION 

view becomes. There the Iowa hills 
appear veiled in hazy blue, or dimmed 
by blowing sands until they resemble 
thin clouds. Truly, 

" 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, 
And robes the mountain in its azure hue." 

Have you ever climbed the long hill 
to Mt. Vernon Cemetery? With con- 
scious effort you walk up the long grade, 
head bowed, eyes downcast when, 
pausing to get your breath, you lift 
your gaze to the horizon, and suddenly 
all your weariness disappears under the 
magic of the scene spread in unmeasured 
expanse before you. Then the world is 
beautiful indeed! The village in the 
valley below! The Normal School 
buildings rising above the oak forest 
like Heidelburg Castle on the German 
hillsides! And, as evening approaches, 
the deep green foliage starred with 
electric lights! 

Old Peru, aside from its being a term 
of endearment in school songs and say- 
ings, reminds one that as a Nebraska 
town it has attained an advanced age. 
Situated in the corner of the state earli- 

XIV 



INTRODUCTION 

est settled, it has passed the half-cen- 
tury mark, and possesses a history of its 
own. It has gone through the usual 
stages of a river town, deserted by boats 
and even by the river itself; but it has 
fared better than most of these towns, 
in that a State Normal School was 
located here and became the seat of 
early education and culture in Ne- 
braska. The individual atmosphere 
that time alone can give a school and 
town is beginning to manifest itself, 
and that atmosphere, if it were to be 
described, might rightfully be character- 
ized as educational, in the highest sense. 
Nature does and will exert its influ- 
ence over the mind. As the northern 
poets of England reflect the beauty of 
the Lake Region, or Scott 's novels give 
out the spirit of the Highlands, so the 
hills, forest and stream stimulate the 
imagination at Peru. The youthful 
fancy, in the most formative period, 
far removed from distracting influences, 
may here follow those quiet paths that 
lead to true wisdom and natural develop- 
ment. 

XV 




K\)t 2|tlte of $eru. 

CHAPTER I. 

Peru in Steamboat Days. 

J^ERU has passed through some 
marked changes since the 
flowery days of the steam 
boat, yet the changes could 
hardly have been greater in a hundred 
years— for the mighty river itself has left 
the old town high and dry, with the land- 
marks of steamboat days so obscured 
by time that one must ask the oldest 
inhabitant to point out where things 
"used to be" Where the boats were 
wont to land in the early days, amid 
the excitement of interested townsfolk, 
the willows have grown repeatedly into 
forests, and a drainage ditch cuts 
through the little patches of corn and 
melons upon the fickle river sands. 

The boat-landing was southeast of 
old Peru, where now the railroad meets 
the bluff and begins its course upon the 
narrow road-bed between the bluff and 

(i) 



THE HILLS OF PERU 




the river. Two warehouses stood here, 
although not a vestige of them remains 
to tell the story of the barrels and bar- 
rels of brown sugar that found their way 
here from the Louisiana cane-fields. 
The sweet memory of bursted barrels 
remains in the minds of many a man 
now grown gray, who can tell enter- 
taining stories of barefooted boys that 
frequented the boat-landing, and 
climbed over barrels and boxes in the 
warehouses, where lock and key were 
unknown. Sacks of flour from Green's 
mill lay in white piles on the wharf, 



STEAMBOAT DAYS 3 

waiting for the boat to come along and 
pick them up. 

The Peru merchant watched eagerly 
for the boat that was to bring him his 
first stock of merchandise and set him 
up in business, attracting trade from the 
wide countryside in the days when 
neighboring towns , save for Brown ville 
the metropolis, were not much more 
than post offices. Even Missouri, just 
across the river, contributed her share 
of patronage to the Peru merchant, and 
the arrival of the tall lank Missourian, 
reflecting the lordly air of the southern 
planter, created some stir on the village 
street and in the tiny crowded stores. 
Make way for the Missourian! A large 
slouch hat shaded his unshaven face. 
His longness was accentuated by his 
high boots, one trouser tucked in and 
the other bulging above the boot-top. 
The cords and cords of cotton-wood 
which he brought over to Peru on rafts, 
or hauled across the ice on sleds, were 
his chief medium of exchange. At a 
price which never exceeded two dollars 
per cord, he exchanged his cotton-wood 



4 THE HILLS OF PERU 

for tobacco, groceries or calico perhaps. 
The region from which he hailed was 
called, in sly humor, the "dogwoods." 
The pink blossoms of the dogwood 
tree still herald the spring time "across 
the river/ ? but the typical dogwooder 
now exixts only in the memory. 

In steamboat days Alain Street ran to 
the river, and the proud name still 
clings to it on the village map. Who of 
to-day will believe that this steep grassy 
road, extending down from Indian Hill 
eastward, between the stores belonging 
to David Jack and Richard Vance, and 
on to the railroad track, was once a 
veritable main street? This was the 
busy highway of steamboat days — not 
more than four blocks long, worn with 
water-gullies, and to this day unflanked 
by sidewalks. A steep old street it has 
ever been, and the two houses that 
stand at the summit, where the road 
begins, (now owned by Dr. Cap Graves 
and Mr. Mardis) are landmarks of 
steamboat times, that even todaj^ are 
beholden for their roominess and endur- 
ance. For more than a decade the Post 



STEAMBOAT DAYS 5 

Office stood at the foot of the hill, fac- 
ing east, at the corner of Alain and 
Fifth Streets. Had we been land specu- 
lators in the early '70s, we should have 
invested in lots on this same Alain 
Street that climbed from the old river 
westward, up to Indian Hill back of the 
village school. 

A bridge also enters into this drama of 
human events. Did you ever pause to 
think of the story that a bridge in a new 
country tells? Men are not likely to 
construct bridges for sparsely traveled 
roads, neither are they ready to provide 
bridges for roads soon to be abandoned. 
A few travelers may ford the creek, or a 
raft of logs is made to serve as a tempor- 
ary bridge. It so happened that his- 
toric Alain Street was crossed by a 
creek about one block east of Fifth Street . 
The creek had worn a deep ravine in 
the rockless clay, on its way to the Miss- 
ouri, and offered a serious obstacle to 
traffic with the river front. Every boy 
of lower Peru has waded in this muddy 
evanescent creek, which today follows 
in the rear of the present business sec- 



6 THE HILLS OF PERU 

tion, and where today it pleads for a 
Municipal Improvement Association to 
rescue it from the unsightly waste of 
every adjacent back door. 

In steamboat days a bridge was 
built across the creek on Alain Street, 
just south of Green's flour mill, and the 
road followed the bluffs eastward around 
to the river. Twice a week the steam- 
boat arrived, bringing the barrels and 
sacks of merchandise from St. Joseph, 
Mo. When the long hoarse whistle of 
the steamboat sounded, a stir arose in 
the village. Mark Twain describes the 
scene perfectly. He knew so well what 
life was like in an old river town when 
he wrote, u The clerks wake up, a fur- 
ious clatter of drays follows, every 
house and store pours out a human con- 
tribution, and all in a twinkling the 
dead town is alive and moving. Drays, 
carts, men, boys, all go hurrying from 
many quarters to a common center, the 
wharf. Assembled there, the people 
fasten their eyes upon the coming boat 
as upon a wonder that they are seeing 
for the first time. 7 ' 



STEAMBOAT DAYS 7 

That there was always keen interest 
in a steamboat's arrival, is not be be 
wondered at, for more varied and in- 
teresting cargoes than these passenger- 
freight boats brought could hardly be 
imagined. A white steamboat riding 
along so smoothly is always a pretty 
sight— the "fire-canoe," as the Indians 
called it— and the interest shown by the 
townspeople who line the shore is recip- 
rocated by the curious passengers, 
pressing close to the rail on the deck. 
Sometimes there were soldiers aboard 
going to the forts, or, as in the 60's, 
accompanying the boat as a guard. 

All in the brief space of fifteen or 




8 THE HILLS OF PERU 

twenty minutes a glimpse of the outside 
world was opened up to the villagers. 
The sight of brightly uniformed men in 
those ominous times was one not be to 
missed. The boats often carried Indian 
agents and annuities and supplies for 
the Indians. There were men going to 
the mines in Montana, Mormons mi- 
grating to Utah, black-robed Jesuit 
priests and other missionaries. Indeed! 
history records the fact that Abraham 
Lincoln, when a young statesman not 
yet talked of for the presidency, made a 
river trip from St. Louis or St. Joseph 
to Council Bluffs, with that most fam- 
ous of river pilots, Capt. La Barge. 
He must then have passed Peru. 

Then there was the loading and the 
unloading of a boat! Always a scene of 
lively interest, but especially so when 
sheer human force did the work. The 
stern commands of the captain, or the 
lively feats of the negro roustabouts 
never grew old to the villagers. If the 
boat was making the trip all the way 
from St. Louis to Fort Benton, Mont., 
which was regarded as the head of navi- 



STEAMBOAT DAYS 9 

gation, you can well believe that the 
assortment of freight and passengers in 
those early days was a varied one in- 
deed. $50,000 world not buy the empty 
boat ! 

Most of the merchandise from Peru 
had been put on board at St. Joseph, 
where the Hannibal & St. Joseph R.R., 
completed in 1859, connected with 
the river trade. U A line of packets 
including three boats ran south to Kan- 
sas City and north to Sioux City, with 
an occasional trip to Ft. Randall, in 
1859." When the Chicago & North- 
western R.R. reached Council Bluffs in 
'67, and the Union Pacific bridge was 
opened across the river in '72, Omaha 
largely supplanted St. Joseph in the 
upper river trade. 

The railroad reached Peru in 1875, 
and around this date there clings a 
volume of local history, rich in incident 
and humor. The first "Excursion to 
the Capital" was an opportunity em- 
braced by not a few of the Peruvians. 
The cars were crowded, and only a for- 
tunate few found room in the "caboose" 



10 THE HILLS OF PERU 

that finished up the line of "box-cars." 
Ask some old settler of Peru about that 
first excursion to Lincoln, and mark the 
smile of remembrance that comes over 
his face. Middle-aged men took their 
first ride on a railroad, Sunday school 
teachers chaperoned their classes, and a 
newly married couple enjoyed a wed- 
ding tour. The excursion left Peru 
early one morning and returned about 
three o'clock the next morning. On the 
way back from Lincoln, the engine left 
a section of the train at the grade near 
Dunbar, and took only a part on to 
Nebraska City, returning later to get 
the other section. But our story must 
not digress too far from our theme, the 
steamboat days. 

Major Chittenden, that master his- 
torian of the Missouri, says that the 
golden era of steamboating on the Mis- 
souri was from 1850-60, just before the 
advent of railroads. "No other period 
before or after approached it in the 
splendor of the boats. All the boats 
were side- wheelers, had full length 
cabins, and were fitted up more for 



STEAMBOAT DAYS 11 

passengers than for freight. It was the 
era of fast boats and racing. " 

Peruvians sometimes indulged in the 
festive pleasure excursions on the river. 
The accounts of such pleasure trips, 
from Peru to St. Joseph in the early 
'70s, have been handed down to us by 
our mothers and fathers, who were the 
young blood of that picturesque period. 
In our mind's eye we see a party of 
happy expectant young men and women 
waiting at the boat landing for the 
grand holiday trip. The Peru band is a 
feature, for, to be sure, Peru is not lack- 
ing in enterprise, and there is something 
of that Southern spirit among those 
early settlers that takes a holiday 
gracefully. The trim and even elegant 
appearance of the ladies and gentlemen 
reveals that a boat excursion is an occa- 
sion for some style and show. In the 
moonlight hours, on the broad steamer 
deck, they trip the light fantastic to the 
spirited music of the Peru band, which, 
by the way, was no mean musical or- 
ganization. Ladies in sweeping trains 
and fluffy polonaise graced the deck. A 



12 THE HILLS OF PERU 

fashionable gown worn on this occasion 
is one of the beautiful relics of steam- 
boat days now owned by a daughter of 
a Peru pioneer. The pale green and 
white organdie, beautifully designed, 
reflects the taste and elegance of Brown- 
ville's leading modiste. 

This paper has made no mention thus 
far of the boats engaged in ferrying pas- 
sengers across the river. Old settlers in 
Peru tell us that they have seen as many 
as fifty or sixty wagons waiting to be 
ferried across to Missouri, and then to 
drive to Sonora and Watson. 

Sonora, once a hamlet of tiny houses 
and a white church that was a landmark 
easily discerned from the hills of Peru, 
has been claimed by the river. The old 
settler of Peru ascends the high hill to 
where Mt. Vernon Cemetery lies, and 
looking across the river and island-bars, 
he points out where Sonora used to be. 

After the railroad came, the boats 
made less and less frequent stops here. 
Many of them still rode majestically by 
on the old river, but their cargoes had 
changed to government supplies of one 



STEAMBOAT DAYS 13 

kind or another, such as fort supplies 
and rip-rapping for the river work. 

In contrast with those stirring scenes 
on the old river front, we have the inci- 
dent of a lonely steamer that called 
here at Peru some fourteen years ago, 
with a load of merchandise. The 
whistles blew for several hours before 
being able to attract the attention of 
the Peruvians. No one was expecting 
a boat to call at this point, and the old 
town had entirely outgrown the habit 
of responding to the whistle of a steam- 
boat. Its arrival was witnessed by a 
botany class that was collecting flowers 
along the river-side, and the amaze- 
ment of the class was exceeded only by 
their amusement, when the negro deck- 
hands commenced to roll the barrels 
and boxes across the gang plank, sing- 
ing lustily at their work. It was like 
an echo of steamboat days. 

The fishermen of to-day, almost the 
only townsmen who frequent the river 
now, can perhaps tell us most about 
these boats that glide silently by our 
town in the summer months, on errands 



14 THE HILLS OF PERU 

unknown to us. The broad flood plain 
that the river has built up in the last 
quarter of a century lies between us and 
the water highway. 

And what of Peru, bereft of its chief 
attraction, the river? Slowly, but surely 
it has crept up the long hill to the south, 
as if to look down from serene heights 
upon the fickle, whimsical river. Its 
real Main Street now runs at right 
angles to the one her founders honored 
with that name. The direction of the 
axis of this little world of ours has 
changed, so to speak. The main axis 
now leads toward the state school on 
the hill. 

One of the first teachers of music in 
the Normal School, Professor D. B. 
Worley, composed a beautiful song in 
honor of an old river, a song much loved 
by the musical students of those early 
days. A faded copy, still extant, bears 
the date 1865. Dear to the memory 
are the voices of those, now silent, who 
sang the sweet refrain: 

"By the side of the deep rolling river, 

I have wandered for many a day. 
Where the roses so sweetly are blooming, 
And the wood-birds are singing so gay." 




CHAPTER II. 

Indian Hill. 

CLIMBED old Indian Hill 
at dusk, at the hour when 
the veil of mystery and 
charm was falling upon the 
real world — an enchanting hour for re- 
newing an acquaintance with the spot 
made dear by childhood memories. 
Every prospect was pleasing in the new- 
ness of spring, and every grassy slope 
was a feast to the eye. Unconscious 
of choosing a view from out this pano- 
rama, I seated myself facing the pic- 
tured east, over which the disappearing 
sun was throwing its last lingering 
light. 

My eye passed beyond the fore- 
ground, across the silver river, to the 
horizon hills in Iowa. These bare hills 
have always been the playground of 
lights and shadows that make a thous- 
and varying pictures every day. Many 
an afternoon I have spent watching the 
changes of light and color reflected by 

15 



16 THE HILLS OF PERU 

the rock surfaces. Nearly always a 
soft haze veils the tops, and there is all 
the beauty of eastern mountain scenery. 
Many a summer day, through drooping 
eyes, I have looked at these hills when 
they were not Iowa hills at all, but the 
blue peaks and crags of the Adiron- 
dacks. Sometimes their soft violet 
beauty was lighted by a patch of bril- 
liant gold that flitted from peak to val- 
ley, and disappeared as instantaneously 
as it came. Sometimes clouds of yellow 
sand, blowing above the river bars, 
obscured the hills and robbed them of 
their soft loveliness. This evening 
from my observatory on Indian Hill, 
the view was like a rare old stained 
glass window, which in dim rich light 
suggested that far-away shore that 
painters have pictured as the home of 
the soul. 

Tonight, once more as of old on the 
hills of Peru, Hive over again those 
lovely lines of Goldsmith: 
Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's 

close, 
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; 
There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, 



INDIAN HILL 17 

The mingling notes came softened from below; 
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, 
And filled each pause the nightingale had made. 

The question has often been debated 
in my mind, as to which were the more 
beautiful, — the bare sharply outlined 
hills of Iowa, or the wooded slopes of 
Nebraska. Finally, I compromised 
with myself by deciding that the bare 
hills lend themselves best in the dis- 
tance to that enchantment of which 
the poet speaks, while the green forested 
slopes are loveliest near at hand; and 
here at Peru this ideal arrangement 
greets the eye. 

The broad flood plain lying between 
the hills and the winding river appears 
level indeed tonight, spread out like a 
checker-board of ploughed squares and 
brown pastures. Here and there straw- 
stacks appear as misty shapes in the 
descending twilight. For a little while, 
a bright line of flame, far away near the 
horizon, blazes up in the north, the 
spring burning of cornstalks that illumi- 
nates the sky with pale yellow flames, 
so familiar to childhood memories. 



18 THE HILLS OF PERU 

When the curtain of shadow had 
fallen over the distant hills, and the 
river was no longer discernible, my visi- 
ble world narrowed down to Indian Hill, 
w r here I sat — an Indian burial ground 
and the site of the village school. Be- 
fore the white man came to this spot, 
the Indians had buried their dead here, 
and here it was that they returned to 
visit the graves of their forefathers. 
They were bands of Otoes from the 
reservation on the Blue River near the 
Kansas borderline. Sometimes they 
passed through Peru on their way to 
visit other bands of Indians, for they 
were fond of visiting, and sometimes 
they came to Peru to trade. On the 
backs of their ponies, they carried flour 
from Green's mill, seventy-five miles to 
their reservation. Peru merchants sold 
them calico and blankets at fine prices. 
Sometimes the Indians passed through 
the village on their way to the hunting 
grounds in Iowa. The Indian agent 
tells what a fine sight it was to see them 
swimming their ponies across the Mis- 
souri, for the pony was their medium of 
travel on land and water. 



INDIAN HILL 19 

The founders of Peru — and some of 
the most potent of those pioneers are 
still living to enjoy the fruits of their 
labors — chose Indian Hill for the loca- 
tion of the district school. High up, 
on the long south slope of the hill, the 
modest one-room structure rose, to bear 
the name of District Number Three, 
and its territory extended considerably 
beyond the limits of the town in all 
directions. The schoolhouse faced the 
sunny south, with the steepest part of 
Indian Hill at its back between it and 
the cold north winds. The playground 
was one long slope, except for a broad 
bare terrace at the east, kept smooth 
and hard by ceaseless play. 

Is there not a natural curiosity among 
folks to want to know the beginnings 
of things, and has not this desire often 
led to a search for truth that has rescued 
history from the obscurity of tradition? 
Then let us bind together the stories of 
the remote past of old Peru, while yet 
the actors in that early drama of cour- 
age and endurance may contribute 
their valuable experiences. 



20 THE HILLS OF PERU 

The district school was built in 1870, 
three years after our statehood, by the 
building contractors, Daniel C. Cole, 
who did the carpenter work, and H. M. 
Mears, the first lumber merchant in 
Peru. The first teacher in this district 
school was Isaac Black, the father of 
the unfortunate young man who was 
drowned in the Missouri river a few 
days before his coming graduation in 
the Normal School in 1872. Until last- 
year, when the bluffs along the Missouri 
were blasted away to make room for the 
new railroad-bed east of town, the name 
of this much mourned young man was 
conspicuous among those carvings in 
the rocks, where the early students of 
the Normal School were wont to leave 
their names recorded. The letters were 
cut deep in the rock, and old settlers 
never failed to recite the tragic story 
which the name recalled, and to warn 
their children against the treacherous 
old Missouri. The spring term of the 
district school was taught by Illinois 
Tate (Mrs. Chas. Neal), who presided 
over a flock of eighty or more children, 



INDIAN HILL 21 

and the next year Anna Moorhead 
(Mrs. W. A. Joy), the first graduate of 
the Normal School, taught here; and 
thus, the school began under the direc- 
tion of noble men and women. Church 
services were held in the schoolhouse by 
itinerant preachers of various denomi- 
nations. 

This school on Indian Hill was not 
the first district school in Peru, however. 
As long as twelve years before this, a 
school had been started farther down 
the hill, a block south of Indian Hill, 
where the present residence of Dr. Fair- 
child stands. Of this school, J. Mank- 
tello was the first teacher, and it later 
became the property of the district. 
This school is no doubt referred to in 
the History of Nebraska, published in 
1882, wherein the account of it and of 
the one on Indian Hill seem to be some- 
what confounded. 

Indian Hill is one of those compact 
clay hills, less than a hundred feet high, 
among which Peru lies. It is really the 
east end, or the beginning, of a long 



22 THE HILLS OF PERU 

ridge that extends westward and in- 
creases n height for about a mile. It 
would be hard to say which was the 
steepest slope, for time and grading 
have changed its outline. Old Main 
Street ascends it from the east, and the 
road to the Normal School meets it on 
the south. 

Of the long south slope I wish to 
speak, for there was the playground of 
every village child. The grade was 
broken by natural terraces, or cat-steps, 
and a coarse grass grew in bunches upon 
it. Flowers seldom appeared there. A 
tiny grass-flower and the Indian turnip 
could hardly be counted as conspicuous. 
There were narrow paths leading over 
the hill, like those on Pike's Peak today. 
The earliest settlers do not know when 
these paths came, and in our imagina- 
tion we see the Indians traveling single 
file along them, for no doubt they are 
the old Indian highways. Even as late 
as the '80 ? s, there was a belief among 
us children that the Indians might 
come back. We thrilled with terror at 
the thought, and sometimes on drowsy 



INDIAN HILL 23 

summer days, when the hum of the 
schoolroom was particularly conducive 
to day-dreams, I thought I saw a dusky 
face peer in at the window, and ask in a 
blood-chilling whisper, "What have you 
done with our graves?" 

The question was only the suggestion 
of my guilty conscience, for we children 
dug and carved and excavated into the 
side of Indian Hill as if it had never 
been a hallowed spot but had been cre- 
ated solely for the delight of busy little 
hands. Sometimes we came upon an 
arrow-head or a stone tomahawk to re- 
mind us of a prior claim. The soil, 
known geologically as Loess, is so firm, 
so compact and so fine-grained that it 
was a delight to little sculptors. Our 
playhouses were unique. We carved 
flights of stairs, seats and tables, and 
hollowed out ovens. The small boys 
excavated tunnels and owned a cave on 
the very top of the hill, that had the 
same attraction for the boys that Mark 
Twain ascribes to Tom Sawyer's "Rob- 
ber Cave." The rain and the wind did 
not destroy our handiwork, and this 



24 THE HILLS OF PERU 

fact suggests the experiences of early 
settlers with this marvelous compact 
soil. It is true that good wells, fifty 
and sixty feet deep, were made in Peru 
with almost no brick facing, perhaps a 
short wall down at the water stratum, 
and a similar one just below the curb, 
to keep out surface water. These wells, 
and also cave-cellars dug fifteen years 
ago without bricking or cementing, are 
still intact. As we observe the Peru 
workman spading a gutter or excavat- 
ing a cistern, we see the smooth firm 
finish that the soil takes, clean and 
brown, not a grain crumbling. Work- 
men acknowledge a pleasure in cutting 
into this soil, and with the school-chil- 
dren, digging into the hillside never lost 
its charm. My fingers still tingle for 
the feel of the clay. 

There were no walks leading to our 
school on the hill, and yet I cannot re- 
call much annoyance from mud. The 
run-off after a rain was very rapid, and 
we kept the paths and "marble ground" 



INDIAN HILL 25 

beaten hard. Sometimes we paused to 
use a scraper on our shoes at the door- 
step, but most of the time our over- 
worked teachers were so concerned 
about the lightness of our heads that 
they gave little heed to the weight of 
our feet. The bare-footed boy had the 
advantage. ]\Ian3 r a time I have seen 
him outline with his dexterous toe the 
circle for the marble game, or mark the 
field for "dare-base." An experience 
that the boys regarded as a marked 
privilege was to go after water. This 
necessitated a trip down the steep hill 
to the town well. Once we knew that 
the boys had started out with the pail, 
we became more thirsty every moment. 
Our tongues became parched. Studj^ 
was abandoned while we watched the 
two boys laboring up the hill and 
lamented over the spilled water that 
splashed on their bare feet. When the 
boys finally came upon the school 
grounds and there was no longer any 
doubt about a water supply, a wild 
waving of hands began in the school, 
beseeching for permission to pass the 



26 THE HILLS OF PERU 

water; and when the teacher had hon- 
ored a pupil with the distinction of 
"passing the water' ' — there was only 
one dipper — a murmur of disappoint- 
ment went over the room, and a whis- 
pered, "She passed it yesterday!" 

There was always a spell of weather 
in the winter when coasting absorbed 
all our spare time. This pleasure w^as 
paramount, and we were unmoved by 
threats or persuasion from the school- 
room. Conditions for coasting were 
ideal. One could hardly find another 
such place. The momentum with which 
we slid down Indian Hill sent us partly 
up Normal Hill. There was no walking 
back, for we came down Normal Hill 
with force enough to take us halfway 
up Indian Hill. A charming sport, 
with no convenient place to end! The 
cold weather seemed to have a benumb- 
ing effect upon our little consciences, 
for boys assured the teacher with an air 
of conviction, "I never heard the bell." 
From the highest and most distant 
point on our coasting grounds, not far 
from the Normal School, we could see 



INDIAN HILL 



27 



our teacher at the door of the district 
school, swinging the large handbell to 
and fro, stopping now and again to 
shade her eyes to see if the clanging bell 
was making any impression upon her 
strayed flock. 

But those days are gone! A two- 
story brick structure has displaced the 
old schoolhouse. The paths are gone, 
and a series of steps lead up to the south 
entrance. The hilltop has been leveled 
down somewhat to afford a building 
site. Quantities of Indian bones were 
unearthed some six feet below the sur- 



X: 




The Modern Brick Building on Indian Hill. 



28 



THE HILLS OF PERU 



face. A part, however, of the old sum- 
mit is still left on the west. The face 
of the pinkish yellow cliff is swept clean 
by the winds. A few holes dug in the 
hill resemble the borings of sand swal- 
lows as compared with our subterranean 
passages. Four giant oaks still stand. 
May they be spared to complete their 
life story! As live and as green as they 
is the memory of the school days in the 
old District School on Indian Hill. 





CHAPTER III 

The Lost Landmark. 

came near having a 
vine covered ruin as a pic- 
turesque landmark on one of 
its hillsides, in the old part of 
town. There, on a hill rich in pioneer as- 
sociations, it gave promise of weathering 
a century of years and outliving its new- 
est neighbors. I refer to a well-built -, 
little brick church erected in 1869, on 
the first hill that skirts the road, as one 
enters old Peru from the north. 

The reader must not confound this 
hill with the one best known of all 
Peru's hills, Pike's Peak — the village 
child's first conception of a mountain. 
One sees Pike's Peak first of all as he 
approaches the town from the north, 
where it rises, sheer and brown, from 
the level lowlands. On the north and 
east the sides are steep, and the Indian 
path has become a narrow gulley; but 
the long south slope is a stretch of lovely 

29 



30 THE HILLS OF PERU 

green, where cattle pasture most of the 
year. Pike's Peak is, in fact, the east 
end of a range that borders the bottom 
lands , broken only rarely by a ravine, 
through which a creek enters and finds 
its way to the river. The hill stands as 
a sentinel over the town, a high point 
from which Indian beacon fires may 
have signaled far across the river. If 
we count it as the first hill in the land- 
scape in Peru, then our reader must 
travel a few paces farther into the town 
to reach the one upon which the little 
church stood. 

In the days before the river had be- 
gun encroaching upon the rich bottom- 
lands north of town, a goodly number of 



Pike's 
Peak 




The 
Bottoms 



THE LOST LANDMARK 31 

farmers had settled there. They could 
see the white cross of the church some 
miles away — for no tree at that time hid 
any house from view — and as they 
walked into the town on a Sunday even- 
ing the light shone rich and soft through 
the colored windows. 

The church site must have seemed a 
very desirable one to the builders — 
high and commanding, centrally lo- 
cated, removed from the street, and yet 
in the same block with the Post Office 
that stood on the busy corner of Fifth 
and Main Streets. To my readers, this 
way of locating a lost landmark by its 
nearness to the post office long since re- 
moved, may seem rather shadowy, but 
not so to any venerable Peruvian, I 
ween, whose mind's eye sees them both 
as clearly as if but yesterday the red 
brick church and the corner-store Post 
Office stood on the hill, with doors fac- 
ing the east, and worn paths leading to 
them. As the steamboats rounded the 
big bend above Peru, the landmark, 
sighted from afar, was this church, set 
high on the first hill, and it was from 



32 THE HILLS OF PERU 

this selfsame hill that Peruvians looked 
northward to catch the first glimpse of 
the boat coming down from Nebraska 
City. When it appeared, a speck on 
the horizon, above the Lone Tree Land- 
ing, it was still a long way off from the 
Peru landing; and while it wound its 
way around the big bend, there was yet 
ample time for the Peruvian to don his 
traveling attire, and hasten to the boat- 
landing. Thus pioneer days had their 
compensations as well as their hard- 
ships. The Indian agent, whose home 
was on the slope of the hill, was one of 
these impromptu travelers. His eldest 
daughter still refers to the time when it 
was her responsible commisson to 
watch for the boats from the hill-top, 
and apprise her father of its coming. 

The church reminded one of the vil- 
lage churches in England, where the 
uniform style of architecture has come 
to have a sacred significance in itself — 
long and narrow, with slender pointed 
windows, a very steep roof, a white 
cross rising directly from the ridge at 
the front end of the church. 



THE LOST LANDMARK 33 

In a book of poems, Linden Blossoms, 
by the late Jeffrey Hrbek, first instructor 
in the Department of Bohemian at the 
University of Nebraska, this exquisite 
poem appears. 

THE OLD CHURCH 

Out of the dust and turmoil of the city street 
Into the sanctuary's restful cool I pass. 
Here no curious eye intrudes upon my acts, 
Here the soft light slants in through colored 

glass. 
And the mould seems sweet to breathe. 
Here one can dream and think and muse. 
And gain once more courage to live the life 
Of the world — the really pleasant life 
Which to tired souls seems drudgery. 
How many an inspiration, gray old church. 
Has come to me from thine own unattractive 

self! 
Doctrine has done its part to cheer the soul. 
But thou, the Building, hast been kinder still. 
As the old vine has learned to take good hold 
Upon the weatherbeaten masonry. 
So I have learned to cling in trust to God. 
I know not what he is excepting good: 
So much the vine knows also of your broad 

front wall. 

If one structure in Peru more than 
another reflected the industry and en- 
terprise of the early days, it was this 



34 



THE HILLS OF PERU 



The Old 

Brick Church 

on the Hill 




strongly constructed church, built of 
native wood and brick, at a time when 
no one was rich, and no one was poor, 
and labor was freely contributed. 



THE LOST LANDMARK 35 

The brick was made from the excel- 
lent clay found on the north side of the 
hill where a brick yard was operated by 
a skillful young Missourian. This was 
near the beginning of the brick-making 
business, that was to continue in Peru 
during the forty years following, with 
this same hill as the source of the clay. 
As one comes into town from the depot 
today, he has not walked far, only two 
blocks perhaps, before he observes that 
the hillside at his right has been cut 
away. It is the old story of the earth 
yielding up her treasure, and man's 
transforming it to his use. The shape- 
less clay re-appears in the homes and 
school building on the hills of Peru. 

During the two hot summer months, 
when the Nebraska farmer longs for 
rain and the brick-maker gives thanks 
for drought, the low, level part of Peru 
was the scene of stead y toil. Team- 
sters were hauling the fine clay from the 
hill to the pit at the brickyard where 
the wooden mill, turned by the slowly 
trudging horse, ground up the moist- 
ened clay. The mill was nothing more 



36 THE HILLS OF PERU 

than a tall, narrow crib, made of rough 
boards, to hold the clay. Down through 
the center of the crib extended a beam 
with spokes projecting. With the turn- 
ing of the spoked beam, the clay was 
evenly stirred and mixed and moist- 
ened. But childhood's memories of 
the old mill lift it far above the crude 
and commonplace contrivance that it 
was, and give it a charm not to be for- 
gotten. For the unfettered and care- 
free youngsters, who idled away the 
summer days, life held no greater joy 
than loitering near the mill. Oh! the 
fun of scaling its slippery sides and 
peering down into the mysterious mud- 
dy workings of the machine! To us 
children it seemed for all the world like 
a huge coffee-mill. There was the cor- 
responding opening near the bottom, 
through which the clay exuded. The 
long wooden arm creaked as the horse 
made his monotonous round, slacken- 
ing his pace at every step. 

At the open side of the mill there was 
a moulding shelf or table, and here, 
standing in a small pit, shaded by an 



THE LOST LANDMARK 37 

awning, the brick-moulder stood, the 
most responsible man concerned in the 
business. With sleeves rolled to the 
elbow and large apron fastened about 
him, he dexterously kneads the clay, 
and flings it into the three-sectioned 
mould. It is he who determines if the 
claj^ is wet enough, or if it contains 
obnoxious pebbles or grit, and it is he, 
who, with emphatic shouts and occa- 
sional flying clods, rouses the horse to 
resume its tiresome travel. 

The old way of moulding brick by 
hand was interesting to see. It was one 
of those processes that look easy, and 
yet defy the person who tries his hand 
at it. If the clay is not firmly fitted 
into the mould, or if the mould is poorly 
sanded, the brick will come out minus 
a corner, or otherwise misshapen. When 
the clay was thrown into the wooden 
form — like so many loaves of bread — 
there was still the upper side to be 
trimmed off clean and smooth. This 
was done by drawing a wire swiftly 
across the top, shaving off the clay as 
if it were dough. The most expert 



38 THE HILLS OF PERU 

brick-moulder in Peru, who learned to 
ply the trade in the '60s and followed 
it for more than twenty years, was Wil- 
liam Phelps. As the years went by, the 
brick yard swung around from the 
north to the east side of the hill, near 
Green's mill, and "Billy" swung around 
with it, too. Brick-making is no longer 
his business, but reminiscences of it are 
rife any day for the visitor who spends 
a pleasant hoar with him, in his little 
shoe-shop at the end of the side street. 
He thinks he made more than a million 
brick himself, in Peru's thriving days 
of brickmaking, out of the identical 
hillside upon which this story centers, 
when, to quote his feeling reference to 
the past, he "worked for the best friend 
he ever had."* 

The boys who carried the brick were 
the "off -bears." They bore the moulds 
of brick from the moulding table to the 
drying grounds, and there turned the 
brick out upon the sanded floor. The 
ground was level as a billiard table, 
and the bricks lay in long straight lines, 
baking in the sun. As the summer days 

* William Phelps passed to his reward in May, 1911. 



THE LOST LANDMARK 39 

progressed, the barefoot boys who la- 
bored as u off -bears" became strong in 
arms and back. The blisters on the 
heels and hands gave place to a skin of 
leatherette. Tan was a color much 
worn, the fashion books might have said. 
They acquired a swinging gait and a 
ryhthmic bearing of the heavy mould, 
and daily the output of brick increased. 
Scores of men in Peru can cite the time 
when as boys they spent the summer 
months as u off-bears" in the brick-yard. 

When the time came for building up 
the brick into a kiln for burning, yet 
another form of skill was required. Here 
the expert brick"setter"came into prom- 
inence, when arms and hands swung 
back and forth, catching and setting 
the brick in even rows, u one over two," 
allowing spaces for a good draught. 
Under the kiln arched openings w^ere 
left for ovens, where logs burned day 
and night for about eight days. The 
fires must be steady, not too hot and 
not too low. If the work of firing is 
faithfully done, the kiln when burned 
will have a true proportion of pink, red, 



40 THE HILLS OF PERU 

and gray brick— the salmon color on 
the outside, farthest removed from the 
heat, the gray near the fire, and the 
beautiful cherry brick in the center, or 
heart, of the kiln. 

Who has not had the pleasure of 
visiting a burning brickkiln at night! 
What small boy has missed the delight- 
ful experience of crouching low to look 
into the long glowing furnaces, when 
for an instant the iron doors were 
opened! Where is the youth who never 
cherished the ambition for once in his 
life to spend the night with the brick- 
burners? 

When midnight approached and the 
crowd of curious stragglers all had 
dwindled away, when the proprietor 
was slumbering in his bed, then the 
night really set in for the brick-burners. 
The gray mist began to rise from the 
ground, and the dusty weeds grew 
heavy with dew after the long, hot 
August daj r . The lapping sound of the 
cottonwood leaves closely resembled 
rain. Occasionally a way-off plunging 
sound came up from the river. The air 



THE LOST LANDMARK 41 

pulsated with the buzzing of the locusts, 
the crickets rubbed their squeaky 
fiddles incessantly, defying the ear 
to locate the sound on the ground 
below or in the air above, and the unre- 
mitting trilling choruses of the frogs 
rose from the willows. It must have 
been on some such night that the plan- 
tation negro was inspired to sing "The 
Bull-frog am no Nightingale !" The 
genuine Peruvian has grown up with 
these sounds of the night. They are 
his drowsy slumber song. What now 
could stave off sleep for the weary 
brick-burners! If it was to be a feast, 
it must be a good one, something more 
substantial even than a luscious water- 
melon. The season of the year was at 
hand when spring chickens and sweet 
potatoes were ripe. These, coming 
from regions unknown, found their way 
to the top of the kiln, beside the boiling 
coffee-pot, there to sizzle and bake, a 
fragrant memory still for scores of Peru- 
vians. 

It is a faulty art that makes it neces- 
sary for a writer to explain the connec- 



42 THE HILLS OF PERU 

tion between the parts of his story. 
The power of suggestion is often a very 
subtle thing, and in this instance the 
digression all came about by one sim- 
ple circumctanse; namely , that the lit- 
tle hill-church, which I have chosen to 
call the Lost Landmark, was made of 
the finest quality of cherry brick. 
Cherry brick! The name sounds at- 
tractive, does it not? 

On the north side of the hill, where 
excavations have exposed its structure, 
there is a vein of rich maroon clay, 
some six or eight feet below the surface, 
dipping to the north. I used to think 
that this red clay gave color and value 
to Peru brick, but the fact is, it is not 
desirable as brick-making material. 
Have you ever handled it, or cut it with 
your knife? It is very close, fine-tex- 
tured, and carves like pipe-stone. The 
fact that it holds water and does not 
dry easily is not in its favor for brick- 
making; but there are properties which 
it possesses that might make Peru 
famous, possibilities for a high quality 
of terra cotta and pottery. It has been 



THE LOST LANDMARK 43 

successfully experimented with in the 
Art Department of the Normal School, 
where vases have been made that out- 
classed Teko in design of work. Its 
excellent firing qualities have been 
demonstrated, and samples sent East 
for examination have been highly 
spoken of. Some of the earliest settlers 
in Peru tell how they used to make 
paint of this red clay. As boys, they 
painted their small wagons red, and 
the crimson coating which they daubed 
on barns and fences remained a deep 
red for many years. These settlers 
state that a capitalist at one time con- 
templated building a paint factory 
here. 

If we would picture our hill as it ap- 
peared in 1869, when the church was 
built, we must restore the north and 
east slopes. We must get away from 
the idea of its being a bluff, as we see it 
todaj^. No grading had been done, and 
the east side of the hill was one long- 
slope as far as Green's mill. Fifth 
street, extending over the ungraded 
hill, was a slippery climb in winter for 



44 THE HILLS OF PERU 

man and beast. The wagons slid and 
turned until they often came down the 
hill side wise. Finally , some of the vil- 
lagers, in desperation, united with 
horses and shovels, and cut away the 
crest of the hill — with an abundance of 
slope left, to be sure, for many years 
following. It was after the railroad 
came, in 1875, and the depot w r as built 
at the north end of Fifth street, that the 
vicissitudes of this hilly road increased. 
In rain or shine, in sleet or snow, there 
was one wagon that for several decades 
rumbled regularly over this road, on its 
errand to and from the depot. Perhaps 
it was not the same "identical" wagon 
that endured the years, but, to all ap- 
pearances, the wagon, team and driver 
seemed unchanged, as they faithfully 
transported The United States Mail for 
the people of Peru. The wagon was 
without a seat, and the driver usually 
stood, or sometimes sat on the corner 
of the wagon-box. This vehicle, more 
than any other in the village, had a fas- 
cination for the children, who ran 
wildly after it for the joy of hanging 



THE LOST LANDMARK 45 

onto the end-gate, or clambered over 
the wheels while the indulgent old man 
stopped to let them in. That kind. 
bearded face, beneath the perennial 
fur cap, is stamped on the memory of 
every village child in lower Peru. The 
long-suffering man performed the func- 
tion of clay-nursery, so to speak, and no 
harm ever befell a child in the keeping 
of the old bachelor, clad in jeans and 
girt with a hempen cord. Beneath that 
rough exterior there beat a warm, true 
heart. 

The ride to the depot was not without 
its sensational features for the hardy 
youngsters who sat in the wagon or 
swung from its end. expecially if there 
was a mad chase clown the hill to catch 
the train that stood waiting on the track. 
The shaking up which the occupants 
received left a tingling sensation in 
every inch of their anatomy. Onlook- 
ers watched the outcome with bated 
breath — but "Peter" always won the 
day. Finally, however, the fates were 
less propitious for the old war-veteran. 
and several years as;o in a run-away 



46 THE HILLS OF PERU 

near the depot, he sustained an injury, 
which resulted in the amputation of a 
limb, and his retirement to the National 
Soldier's Home. The wide-spread sym- 
pathy and interest on every hand be- 
tokened the distinct place that he held 
in the memory of every one who had 
ever been familiar with Peru, where he 
fitted, as it were, into the landscape of 
the old town. In the early days the 
newly arriving Normal School student 
— seldom rich and often poor, unso- 
phisticated in the ways of travel — made 
as his first acquaintance this man, 
"Peter," for was it not he who hauled 
his trunk and baggage? And did not he 
soothingly say to the student, who 
fumbled for the change, that there was 
no hurry about the pay, which, by the 
way, amounted, all told, to the sum of 
ten cents. Men in high places today recall 
with gratitude this first business transac- 
tion in Peru, when going away to school 
meant for them working their way. 

If, on every hill-top in Peru, there 
were erected a monument inscribed 
with its record of events, we should 



THE LOST LANDMARK 47 

read the annals of early days almost 
complete, for the hilltops were the scene 
of picturesque incidents year after year. 
In attempting to re-instate the experi- 
ences of early days through the recol- 
lections of pioneers, I find that not 
a few but many events transpired on 
the summits of the hills. To be sure 
there was not a Bunker Hill among 
them, but there might have been, had 
the occasion demanded. The Union 
sentiment was strong, and there were 
flag-raisings and celebrations. In 1861, 
as nearly as old settlers can recall this 
particular event, Old Glory was raised 
on the hill where the church later stood. 
The flag-pole was a tall spliced syca- 
more, smooth and straight, and more 
than sixty feet high. Encamped on the 
hill at the time was a regiment of Ne- 
braska soilders. This flag-raising oc- 
curred more than fifty years ago, and 
yet the story was related to me by a 
man who witnessed it at the age of ten. 

If I might have been permitted to 
enjoy any of Peru's real pioneer experi- 
ences, my choice of them all, I am sure, 



48 THE HILLS OF PERU 

would have been the Fourth of July 
celebrations, held on the hill-tops, un- 
der the sky's canopy. They have been 
the subject for some of the most de- 
lightful reminiscences, related to me by 
eyewitnesses, whose names I might 
mention with pride. It was in the very 
early sixties, on the aforesaid hill, that 
a rousing Fourth of July Celebration 
took place. There were no shade trees on 
the spot, so men and boys constructed 
a long arbor of boughs. They set up 
forked poles and laid willows across 
for a canopy. Under this fresh green 
covering of willows cut and carried 
from the riverside, a table, many feet 
long, was heaped with delicious things 
to eat. I have a burning curiosity to 
know what those eatables were, for, 
each time that this part of the story has 
been related to me, there has been a 
tone of voice and a use of superlatives 
convincing me that, in quantity and 
quality, this feast was memorable, — a 
compliment to the Peru housewives 
who prepared and served it. A large 
crowd assembled to celebrate, many of 



THE LOST LANDMARK 49 

the number being Missourians, who had 
crossed the river in flat-boats and skiffs. 
In fact, the speaker of the day, I am 
told, was a school teacher from Mis- 
souri. There was martial music on the 
fifes and drum from musicians who 
stood in a wagon that shifted its posi- 
tion to suit the crowd. Major Brush, a 
drummer in the Mexican War, and later 
a musician in the Civil War, beat the 
drum that day, the same instrument 
that had gone with him through the 
war in Mexico, and which is still in his 
possession.* The fifers trilled and whis- 
tled their lively tunes, until every boy 
was stepping to music. The spirit of 
Independence was there and the patri- 
otic prelude to a great Civil War. 

But the war was over, and the Boys 
in Blue, whose lives were spared, had 
returned to Peru when the subject of 
this sketch, from which we have so far 
digressed, was erected on the hill as an 
Episcopal house of worship. The two 
lots for its site were deeded to the church 
by Dr. J. F. Neal, and the timber was 
furnished largely by Thomas Green, 

*Major J. W. Brush answered the last summons 
August, 1911, at the age of ninety-one. 



50 THE HILLS OF PERU 

while the labor was a contribution from 
townsmen generally. A lady member 
of Grace Church in Brooklyn Heights, 
New York, whose name is not recorded, 
contributed one thousand dollars to the 
enterprise, and the sum of five or six 
hundred dollars was raised in Peru 
through the strenuous efforts of two or 
three adherents of the Church of Eng- 
land, the church of their native land. 
This leaves the source of some money 
still unaccounted for, and it would not 
be unreasonable to suppose that Bishop 
Clarkson, a generous founder of hos- 
pitals and churches in his time, sup- 
plied something of this amount.* In 
the church archives in Omaha there is a 
pamphlet, published in 1893, as the 
Quarter-Centennial History of the Dio- 
cese of Nebraska. A few statements 
from it will not be amiss at this junc- 
ture: 

u Peru, in Nemaha County, on the 
river bank, away down almost in the 
extreme southeast corner of the state, 
was one of the earliest spots where the 
church planted her agencies for the 

*The widow of Thomas Green informs us that her 
husband contributed this sum of money. 



THE LOST LANDMARK 51 

spiritual assistance of those passing 
through the 'Great American Desert' 
on their western way. Bishop Clarkson 
in his first report, in October, 1866, 
speaks of it as a station 'where services 
periodical or occasional are held by the 
bishop and clergy of the territory/ 
At the organization of the Diocese in 
September, 1868, we find St. Mary, 
Peru, ranked among the Parishes of the 
Diocese with five communicants and 
property valued at $2,800. The Rev. 
Dr. Oliver laid the cornerstone of the 
church in 1868, and the building was 
completed and opened for use the fol- 
lowing year. It was the first house of 
worship erected in the town, f In 
Bishop Clarkson's address to the Coun- 
cil of the Diocese that year he an- 
nounced that the church was wholly 
paid for and ready for consecration, 
but it was never consecrated. " 

For thirty-five years this church 
stood a monument of pioneer labor, but 
alas! lacking in congregation and spir- 
itual results. It was rather remarkable 
for its negative qualities, in-as-much as 

tThe first Episcopal house of worship. 



52 THE HILLS OF PERU 

there never was a resident minister, 
nevermore than five communicants, and 
never a marriage or confirmation service 
performed within its walls.* This melan- 
choly commentary appears in the Quar- 
ter-Centennial History: u In Peru we 
had a few communicants, but they have 
removed or died, and there were none 
to rise up in their stead, and today 
there is not one left even to care for the 
protection of the building, itself the 
gravestone of the church there. " One 
funeral occurred in St. Mary's Church, 
and — strangely co-incident — it was 
the burial service for Thomas Green, 
who, only ten years before, had been its 
chief donor, and whose name must ap- 
pear in connection with every early 
enterprise in Peru. 

Even if the church seemed to have 
failed in visible results, I love the 
building itself not a whit less — 
"How many an inspiration, gray old church 
Has come to me from thine own unattractive 

self!" 

The interior harmonized with the ex- 
terior in simplicity and harmonious 

*The two children of Thomas and Mary Green were 
baptised in this church. 



THE LOST LANDMARK 53 

design. As one might expect after ob- 
serving the long narrow building, it 
consisted only of the nave, or long mid- 
dle aisle, with pews on either side. The 
distance from the entrance to the chan- 
cel seemed longer perhaps than it really 
was, on account of the high sharp- 
angled roof above it. The narrow 
Gothic windows let in the light through 
red glass and softened the glare of 
white plastered walls, the window 
above the altar being larger than the 
others. In this present day when hard 
wood is found chiefly in veneer, we can- 
not but have a heightened respect for 
the walnut pews, the reading desk and 
communion table. A moss green car- 
pet extended down the middle of the 
church, and at the left of the chancel 
stood a small organ. When the bishop 
made his occasional visits to Peru, it is 
a commendable fact that a goodly num- 
ber availed themselves of the oppor- 
tunity of listening to this scholarly 
gentleman, although among the pio- 
neers very few could engage in the for- 
mal part of the service, those few hav- 



54 THE HILLS OF PERU 

ing been reared in the faith, either in 
this country or in England. There 
came nearer being a responsive hearti- 
ness in the congregational singing of the 
grand old hymns, unassisted by a choir. 
As a matter of record, I wish I were 
able to tell where the organ was manu- 
factured. Its volume was re-enforced 
by pumping, and well do the pioneers 
remember the stalwart German whose 
native sense of rhythm and faithfulness 
made him indispensable at this post. 
Only a few days ago this venerable 
citizen and I fell into a conversation 
about this old organ, and he remarked, 
"I think it must have leaked some, be- 
cause it took so much pumping/' 

How vividly some of these services 
in the early eighties come back to mind! 
Once more I recall my childish wonder- 
ment at the congregational risings and 
sittings, my scrutiny of the bishop's 
robes and my curiosity to know their 
significance, and, chiefly, my reverence 
for the man himself, whose presence 
sometimes honored our home and table. 
But when I think of that comely Saxon 



THE LOST LANDMARK 55 

youth, the sweet-voiced singer, at the 
organ, whose slender fingers drew from 
the faded keys a response rich and rever- 
ent — then, indeed, does my pen falter, 
and my heart mourn for a voice that is 
gone. Those who knew the boy, Wil- 
liam Gaede, my lamented kinsman, will 
not withhold this slight tribute to his 
memory/ The purity of his soul shone 
in his countenance, and human hearts, 
old and young, responded to his influ- 
ence for good that continues through 
the years, while his body rests in the 
shadow of the Celtic Cross on Alt. Ver- 
non Hill. 

For a while St. Mary's Church served 
as temporary quarters for three other 
denominations, and then followed the 
years of disuse and abuse that brought 
about its end. Never having been con- 
secrated, the church was used also as a 
place for secular gatherings — political 
meetings, entertainments and a private 
school. But it was practically an unten- 
anted building, and destruction began 
to make its inroads. The first to go was 
the window glass, shivered here and 



56 THE HILLS OF PERU 

punctured there in a way that suggested 
that the small boys in sling-shot season 
had been having target practice. How 
often in summer have I seen the birds 
coming and going through the opening 
in the altar window. In the Quarter- 
Centennial History, afore-mentioned, 
Rev. Canon Talbot is quoted as saying: 
"The old parochial register was de- 
stroyed by a lot of vandals who tore up 
all the books and papers found in 
church many years ago/ 7 Locks and 
bolts, storm-doors and windows seemed 
inadequate to withstand vandalism 
when once it began. One by one, the 
pieces of furniture disappeared; the 
organ had become the home of musi- 
cally inclined mice, the little wooden 
cross on the gable, gray and old, leaned 
impendingly to the side, and finally 
disappeared. I have wondered what 
became of it, and whether it ever 
pointed any one to heaven. Were it 
mine, I should treasure it not only as 
a symbol of Our Lord Crucified, but of 
pioneer hopes and aspirations. I can- 
not believe that any one could construct 



THE LOST LANDMARK 57 

a cross and not be ennobled thereby. 

There was no poet to rally together 
the friends of the first church in Peru, 
and rescue it from destruction as 
Holmes' u 01d Iron Sides" saved the 
battleship Constitution. As an entity 
it was doomed to disappear. The build- 
ing as it stood was sold in 1905 to the 
Christian Church organization of Peru, 
for the sum of fifty dollars, and the 
lots were sold for taxes. Then the 
dismantling of the structure began, 
and there was revealed a soundness 
and endurance that led me to venture 
the assertion made at the beginning 
of this sketch; namely, that the ruin 
gave promise of weathering a century 
of years and outliving its newest neigh- 
bors. The cottonwood timber was 
still well preserved, even in the floor. 
The shingles in the steep roof, unde- 
cayed by time, were removed with 
difficulty from the boards to which 
they were fastened with long nails. 
Scarcely a brick was wasted, the 
cherry brick facing being in excellent 
condition. The entire foundation of 



58 THE HILLS OF PERU 

the new Christian Church is made of 
this fine old structure. Even the stone 
steps — blocks of limestone from a 
quarry two miles west of Peru — were 
transferred to the new site, there to 
bear the footsteps of a younger genera- 
tion seeking, as did the pioneers, to 
find God. 

u 0h! there is not lost one of earth's charms! 
Upon her bosom yet, after the flight of untold 

centuries, 
The freshness of her far beginning lies, 
And vet shall lie." 



Iowa Nebraska Missouri 




CHAPTER IV. 

The Mill axd Other Pioxeer Pictures. 

OWADAYS when railroads 
determine almost entirely 
the location of a town, there 
is very little of geographic in- 
fluence associated with a town's situa- 
tion. The place where it suits a railroad's 
convenience to end may be an unpre- 
possessing spot for a town, but despite 
the unfitness of certain lasting natural 
conditions, it is there that a town will 
spring up, while perhaps a very few 
miles distant, an ideal townsite lies 
unused. As a railroad extends its 
course and pushes its terminus farther 
into the heart of a new country, the 
little towns that it leaves behind often 
fade away, unless some other factor 
has come in to give them a hold upon 
life. In pioneer days most of the 
permanent towns grew up because of 
distinct geographic influences. Pitts- 
burgh the gateway to the Ohio valley, 
could not have become other than a 

59 



60 THE HILLS OF PERU 

flourishing city; Cincinnati, on a great 
river-bend, marked the place for load- 
ing and unloading steamboats; Omaha 
began as a trading post, then a gateway 
to the Platte Valley trail, and a point 
where a bridge spanned the Missouri. 
However, it is not safe to conclude that 
even in those pioneer days the greatest 
natural advantages determined the 
location of the largest, richest cities. The 
early history of Nebraska reads like a ro- 
mance in its record of the narrow mar- 
gins by which one town achieved and 
another forfeited its future greatness. 
A single stroke of statesmanship, a 
moment's lethargy, gained or lost for a 
town a bridge, a stage line, a fort, a 
turnpike, a capital, or a railroad. Thus 
some of the early towns born great were 
destined to lose their birthright. 

Peru had its reason for being long 
before the railroads reached it, and al- 
though but little more than a half 
century has elapsed since the date 1857 
(when Peru was entered at the Brown- 
ville Land office), and but two genera- 
tions have reached manhood since its 



PIONEER PICTURES 



61 




62 THE HILLS OF PERU 

christening, those early scenes have 
already faded into the dim distance, 
and our youths of today are unaware 
of the deeds of their fathers. It is 
for their descendants, and not for the 
brave pioneers themselves, that this 
sketch is offered, in a feeble attempt to 
re-instate those early days. Xone too 
soon is it to seize upon these evidences 
of change before they slip away! 

The landscape — the "eternal hills' ' 
and the trees — what changes have come 
over them! The trees tell their story of 
multiplied growth, while the hills in 
subdued outlines have lowered their 
summits and reduced their slopes under 
the influence of the rain and the plow. 
The large timber was near the streams, 
and the early settlers, who were used to 
living in a wooded country, chose these 
regions for homebuilding, rejecting at 
first the beautiful open prairies with 
soil so surpassingly fertile and easily 
won to the plow. Close to the river 
were the giant eottonwoods, the native 
elm, sycamore and oak, while the hills 
were overgrown with so-called brush 



PIONEER PICTURES 63 

among which tiny oaks were springing 
up from seeds borne by the birds and 
the winds. Shade was not be be found 
on the hill-tops or prairies. 

The young horticulturalist in Peru 
today might profitably interest himself 
in reckoning the age and noting the 
variety of trees that surround the homes 
in the village, and constitute the groves 
in the country-side. These have prac- 
tically all grown up within the memory 
of the oldest inhabitant. An instance 
occurring only last summer impressed 
upon us the youthfulness of our trees. 
After fifty years of absence, a lady re- 
turned to Peru. In the hope of obtain- 
ing an expansive view of the town, as 
she had been wont to do in her child- 
hood, she stood once more at the door of 
her old home (located opposite the old 
M. E. Church). It was then that she 
realized that the town's new dress of 
shade trees had changed it beyond recog- 
nition, and hidden from view its slopes 
and valleys. 

All within the memory of the first set- 
tlers, cottonwoods have been planted. 



64 THE HILLS OF PERU 

have grown to lofty heights, been cut 
down and supplanted by hardwoods, 
which in turn have become ample shade 
trees. The handsome row of walnut 
trees on Dr. J. F. Neahs farm, along the 
road that leads into Peru from the south 
was started from the seed fifty years 
ago. On the State Normal campus a 
large red oak I Quereus Texana l which 
was cut down at the south-east corner of 
the Administration building April. 1911 
told in rings of growth the age of forty- 
two years. It measured six feet in 
circumference and about fifty feet in 
height. It was one of the oldest trees 
on the campus, and yet the acorn from 
which this veteran sprang had not been 
formed when the Normal School was 
established in '67. Two oaks near the 
south end of Science Hall are possibly 
older by a decade. The thick stand of 
oaks and elms on the beautiful slope 
east of the Main building are of a 
younger growth, the older trees having 
been cut out some twenty years ago. 
A shapely Lombardy poplar, cut down 
on the private property north of Science 



PIONEER PICTURES 




Hall showed a growth of twenty-five 
years. It is said that trees are the old- 
est living things in America. Trees 
with six thousand years of growth, with 
gigantic branches before Columbus dis- 
covered the new world, are far removed 
from the experience of the prairie pio- 
neer. 

Remembering that Peru began at the 
river's edge, round about the old boat- 
landing, we find the saw-mills the scene 
of its chief activity. Xot only along the 
river, but upon the adjacent islands 
were mills busily turning the timber 
into lumber, shingles and logs. Upon 



66 THE HILLS OF PERU 

Sonora Island two mills operated, and 
the trees which we see there today are 
all a new growth. Old settlers in Peru 
tell of their experiences upon McKis- 
sick's Island, above the village, when 
they found employment some fifty years 
ago in one of the large sawmills there. 
The mention of McKissick's Island re- 
minds us of the fact that this land was 
not always the complete island that it 
is today. It is true that a slough, 
or shallow stretch of water, lay between 
it and the mainland, but a more com- 
plete separation was yet to come. The 
river swung in a great bend around the 
island, which served as a protective 
barrier to the lands on the west. But 
finally in '67, the old Missouri, grown 
tired of the sixteen miles detour, cut 
through a narrow neck some ninety 
rods across, in a single night, and sent a 
swift current rushing and plunging 
through the new channel. Having 
wedged itself in at this point, the river 
began its career of vast encroachments 
upon the bottom lands. Farms were 
engulfed one after the other, and early 



PIONEER PICTURES 67 

settlers attest to the fact that they 
have seen as many as a thousand acres 
of their best land go into the river in 
twenty-four hours. We have reason to 
believe that the old river was repeating 
its history, because, far below the sur- 
face of the land buried logs of vast di- 
mensions protruded into the water. 
This evidence is further corroborated 
by the experience of farmers on the 
bottom lands, who in digging their 
wells have struck huge logs some fifteen 
feet below the surface. 

A stern-wheeler steamboat, the"Bish- 
op. v Captain Overton in command, 
in '67, went down in the strong waters 
of the new channel. It was loaded with 
gunny sacks of corn from Hamburg for 
the government. The wreck was later 
bought by Samuel Pettit, and stripped 
of its machinery and lumber down to 
the hull. (The companion-way in this 
ill-starred boat has served as a stairway 
in the home of Daniel Cole for forty 
years) . 

The saw-mill and the grist-mill, even 
before the settlement was incorporated 



68 



THE HILLS OF PERU 



— these two factors determined the lo- 
cation of Peru. Of them all. Green's 
mill, standing near the east end of old 
Main street, is the only survivor, a 
finely preserved land-mark of river days. 
The river front is now dry land. The 
small stores, the ware-houses, the saw- 
mills and the boat-landing are in the 
river. The wood-yards no longer in- 
vite the passing boat to stop for fuel, 
as in the days when the cords of cotton- 
wood in long lines lay on the shore, 
when "cottonwood script was legal 
tender. " If the owner of the wood was 
not on hand when the steamboat 




PIONEER PICTURES 69 

arrived, the crew measured the 
wood and loaded it on board. The 
boat-clerk might leave a note telling 
the owner where he could call for 
his money, and as far as we have learned 
no money was ever lost. To be sure, 
sometimes the cords of irregular poles 
and slabs were piled rather loosely, as a 
steamboat clerk remarked upon one 
occasion after measuring the pile, "A 
good deal of air in that wood!' 7 Xo 
more may the passer-by see the gunny 
sacks of corn piled high along the river 
waiting in wind and weather for the 
steamboat. Sometimes the boat pro- 
vided a tarpaulin, and the corn was not 
wholly unprotected. A thousand bush- 
els belonging to Abner Carlisle, and five 
thousand bushels to Harmon Ra\ r en- 
dured in the early days a spell of contin- 
ued rains, when the sprouts began burst- 
ing through the sacks. Reports vary as to 
the price Mr. Ray received for his corn 
in St. Louis, but the amount was evi- 
dently not entered on the credit side of 
the books. 

The history of Green's mill is the his- 



70 THE HILLS OF PERU 

tory of old Peru in a nut-shell. Erected 
in 1862 by Thomas Green, it became the 
most ambitious center of industry for 
many miles around. It was built of 
strong yellow cottonwood, when large 
trees were plentiful and lumber was not 
more than ten dollars per thousand. 
The fine large posts in the center of the 
building were hewn from the heart of 
the tree. Like the "good old days" 
these giant yellow cottonwoods are 
gone. The lumber was cut at Green's 
saw mill on the Missouri side of the 
river, on land that has since disappeared, 
and hauled across on the ice. The ma- 
chinery was planned by a millwright, 
who had learned his trade in England, 
and his exactness was a marvel to the 
pioneers. For one year Daniel Cole 
worked beside him, a pioneer loyal to 
early memories. Many parts of the 
machinery were made of wood instead 
of steel. The wooden shafts, reels, and 
spiral conveyor were all made by hand. 
No turning-lathe was then in use. The 
shafts were made of the heart of syca- 
more trees. The modern student of 



PIONEER PICTURES 71 

manual training might well observe the 
mortise-joints, dove-tailing and wooden 
pins. The building is still true and 
plumb. When completed with its four 
new patent flour bolts the mill cost the 
builder seventeen thousand dollars. It 
was operated by steam, and there were 
three sets of mill-stones. Green's flour 
was unexcelled in this section of the 
country. Men were constantly em- 
ployed in hauling the fuel from McKis- 
sick's Island to the mill. 

Before the present building was 
erected, there had gone into the river 
on the east a grist mill, a large saw-mill, 
a log and lumber yard belonging to 
Green and Baker. The machinery in 
the sawmill was barely rescued by the 
proprietors before the land on which it 
stood sank. This machinery was later 
installed on the Missouri side of the 
river, while the grist mill was moved to 
its present location. In connection 
with this commercial period in Peru, 
the names of three men who came from 
Indiana in 1857 were destined to stand 
out in large letters — Hon. Samuel Daily, 



72 THE HILLS OF PERU 

congressman , who brought with him 
from Indiana the machinery for a saw- 
mill; Major Baker , Indian agent at the 
Otoe Reservation; and "Tom" Green, 
capitalist, who dared to risk his all in 
frontier enterprises that gave the thrill 
of life to the pioneer business world. 

The steamboats brought grain to the 
mill from Otoe City (Minersville) , 
Brownville and St. Deroin. Farmers 
for many miles around brought their 
grain to the mill to be ground into flour. 
Indian bands came from their reserva- 
tion on the Blue, and after camping for 
the night on the slough north of the 
village, loaded their little ponies to the 
limit of endurance with four or five 
sacks of flour (ninety-six pounds in a 
sack). Mr. Green had the government 
contract to supply the Indians with 
flour in parts of the upper river reserva- 
tions. Then there were the ponderous 
freighters, bound for the Pike's Peak 
country. The double yoke of oxen 
seemed scarcely to move with the great 
loads of flour. 

Those were exceedingly busy days, 



PIONEER PICTURES 73 

but they were merry ones, too, for are 
they not "the good old days?" On the 
Fourth of July, in '62, the mill rang with 
the shouts of the dancers. Its comple- 
tion was thus celebrated by the village 
folk, who scraped and bowed to the 
irresistible tunes of the "fiddlers three. " 
For forty years the mill has ceased to 
operate. The machinery was sold to 
various buyers, and the building came 
into the possession of H. M. Mears, a 
Peru merchant. For twenty years the 
lower stories were used as ware-rooms, 
while the upper floor bore the proud 
title of the Peru Opera House, where 
itinerant players thrilled young Peruv- 
ians with their productions of Kathleen 
Mavourneen and Uncle Tom's Cabin, 
for the small admission fee of ten cents. 
Since '98 the old mill has been used as a 
warehouse for lumber, and is at present 
the property of the Meek Lumber 
Company. 




CHAPTER V. 

The Pioneer — Whence and Whither. 

PEOPLE may be tracked 
by the geographic names 
which they give to the regions 
which they occupy. The 
names of their children and their towns 
perpetuate their history. Peru was no 
exception to the rule, named as it was 
by a company of emigrants from Peru, 
Illinois, pioneers who saw fit to spend 
their lives and end their days in the town 
of their founding, or on the beautiful 
farms adjoining. The names of the 
sturdy population transplanted from the 
prairies of Illinois to the prairies of 
Nebraska cannot be enumerated at this 
time, but a historian of Peru may not 
delve far into the early family alliances 
and neighborhood notes without know- 
ing of the Medlej T s, the Swans, the 
Horns, the Halls, the McKenneys, the 
Combses, and the Tates, and today the 
stranger, sauntering in beautiful Mt. 
Vernon Cemetery, sees their names 



THE PIONEERS 75 

again and again on the headstones. The 
small vanguard that arrived in Peru ex- 
pressed their satisfaction in their letters 
sent back to the home folks. Xot that 
any appeal or inducement was held out ; 
often only the slenderest thread of sug- 
gestion was sufficient to draw a friend 
or relative, who was already looking 
longingly westward, to the Missouri 
river country. Some of these emigrants 
had themselves been Illinois pioneers, 
and the migratory instinct was strong 
in them and in their children, even so 
much so that some, grown old in Peru, 
desired yet a third time to go west, and 
take a share in new lands. 

By boat, by train, and with ox-teams 
they came, these migrating people. 
There was Thomas Williams, who came 
to Peru from Illinois in 1859, having 
made a nine days' trip down the Miss- 
issippi and then journeyed by train to 
Hannibal, Missouri, where he boarded 
the boat which brought him to Peru. 
Little Illinois Tate (Mrs. Charles Xeal) 
when but a child of four years, rode be- 
hind an ox-team all the way from her 



76 THE HILLS OF PERU 

native state, whose name she bore, to 
Peru. Others made the whole trip from 
Peru, Illinois, by boat, going down the 
Illinois and Mississippi, and there tak- 
ing a Missouri river steamer. The 
mention of "Bureau County/' Illinois, 
has a familiar sound to many a Peru 
pioneer. For years the population of 
Peru all seemed related one to the other, 
and only of late are we ceasing to hear 
from old and young, the kindly ex- 
pressions, "Aunt Lucinda," "Uncle 
John/' and "Aunt Polly." 

In a number of instances we find that 
Peru received some of her best settlers 
by the merest chance, as when a family, 
enroute to Kansas, crossed the river 
here, and finding satisfied friends and 
fertile lands, changed their original 
plans, and ventured no farther toward 
1 'bleeding Kansas . ' 7 Like the scriptural 
shepherd patriarchs they had gone forth 
to choose instinctively from out the 
great domain such lands as to them 
seemed good for their flocks and herds. 

The kindred experiences of the prairie 
states is set forth bv Allen White, when 



THE PIONEERS 77 

he says of the Missouri boy who played 
in the road, (k The movers' wagon was 
never absent from the boy's picture of 
that time and place. Either the canvas 
covered wagon was coming from the 
ford of Sycamore Creek, or disappearing 
over the hill beyond the town, or was 
passing in front of the boys as they 
stopped their play. Being a boy, he 
could not know, nor would he care if 
he did know, that he was seeing one of 
God's miracles — the migration of a 
people, blind but instinctive as that of 
birds or buffalo, from old pastures into 
new ones. All over the plains in those 
days, on a hundred roads like that 
which ran through Sycamore Ridge, 
men and women were moving from east 
to west, and, as often has happened 
since the beginning of time, when men 
have migrated, a great ethical principle 
was stirring in them." 

The staid agricultural community 
might have lacked color had there 
been no soldiers of fortune, no adven- 
turers to enliven the scene. We must 
not forget that Peru was founded but 



78 THE HILLS OF PERU 

a few months before the gold strike in 
the Pike's Peak country, which occurred 
in 1858, and it is to this co-incident that 
she owes some of her most virile citizens 
who fell to her lot in the rush to and 
from the gold fields, citizens with talent 
and business acumen. Some had been to 
Pike's Peak and returned disillusioned; 
others had come across the Missouri, 
and hearing discouraging reports, de- 
termined to proceed no further, but to 
locate in the busy village of Peru; 
while a fortunate few brought back the 
gold dust that had lured them across 
the plains. Of the last class mentioned, 
the story is told of one fortune-seeker 
who returned carrying his booty in a 
goose-quill — two and one-half dollars 
in gold dust, in the getting of which he 
had expended seven hundred dollars. 

In Root and Connelley's book, 'The 
Overland Stage to California," we read: 
"It was the universal remark that 
nearly all who went out on the plains 
in the later '50s, and early '60s, had gone 
to Pike's Peak. Thousands of men 
attracted by the glowing reports of vast 



THE PIONEERS 79 

quantities of gold at the new mines, 
fitted out at the prominent Missouri 
river towns — Kansas City, Leaven- 
worth, Atchison, St. Joseph, Nebraska 
City, and Omaha — and started for the 
new i diggings. 7 Nearly all the roads 
that led over the prairies and on the 
plains united at or near Fort Kearney, 
and from that point west the great 
overland military thoroughfare along 
the south bank of the Platte was lined 
with a busy, moving throng of people. 
representing a score or more of states, 
having in their charge various descrip- 
tions of vehicles. It was not long, how- 
ever, until large numbers, thoroughly 
disgusted with the situation, began to 
return. Some backed out before they 
had gone one hundred miles from the 
Missouri river. Some turned back 
when within a few miles of Denver. 
The most of them on reaching their 
destination, became wiser and poorer, 
disappointed in not being able to pick 
up gold nuggets at every step. Com- 
paratively few dared venture across in 
the winter, but in the spring of 1859 



80 THE HILLS OF PERU 

the immense rush began, and for months 
the road across the plains was fairly 
lined with white-covered wagons — nine 
out of ten of the people accompanying 
them destined for the new Tike's Peak 
mines/ Those in search of the precious 
stuff went across in all kinds of vehicles , 
not a few pushing their effects in hand- 
carts and wheel-barrows. Quite a num- 
ber started out with packs on their 
backs. It was plain that the 'fever' 
was raging at its highest. " 

Among those men who felt that Peru 
would bring them gold more surety than 
would the Pike's Peak country, and who 
pressed no further westward, was Dr. 
John F. Neal, an educated young phy- 
sician, who came from Libertyville, 
Iowa, in 1859, whose valuable services 
the village and the whole country-side 
relied upon for forty years. For "chills- 
and-fever" he knew a remedy, and the 
poor as well as the prosperous received 
attention from his willing hands. Every 
villager holds in his childhood memory 
the picture of the large, kindly country 
doctor, who lived upon his broad acres 



THE PIONEERS 81 

adjoining Peru. His drives through 
the town, and his resounding "good- 
morning!" never failed to attract the 
attention of the villagers, and arouse a 
curiosity to know his destination. Occa- 
sionally some village dame, with in- 
quisitiveness irresistible, ran from her 
gate, and boldly brought his nag to a 
standstill, while she inquired "Who is 
sick out this way?" or "Have you got 
any hopes for Uncle Abner this morn- 
ning?" The circumspect answers of 
the dignified doctor served in part, at 
least, to relieve the inquirer and on- 
lookers of their suspense. 

While we would not be one of those 
who mourn for the "good old days," 
yet we cannot but wonder what there 
is to take the place nowadays of those 
early experiences, to stimulate a young 
man's mettle and train his muscle. I 
listened one day with wrapt interest 
to the recollections of a Peru pioneer, 
and, involuntarily, I contrasted his 
early training-school with that of the 
present, when, smilingly he said, "Yes, 
I went part way to the Pike's Peak 



82 THE HILLS OF PERU 

country but I came back disgusted. I 
got throughly sickened with the wild 
cattle. Our outfit was the usual train 
of twenty-six freight wagons, with five 
yoke of oxen, and one driver for each 
wagon. At night the big freighters 
were placed in two semi-circles, joined 
by chains, with the center as a corral. 
The cattle were turned loose to graze 
at night, tended by the night herder. 
Every morning those long-horned wild 
oxen were driven into the corral, and 
there was the torment of yoking them. 
With our wagons, each carrying from 
five to seven thousand pounds of freight, 
we covered ten or twelve miles a day. 
and we were never out of sight of a 
train on the road. The wide 'steam- 
wagon road 7 (leading west from Ne- 
braska City) was worn down a foot by 
constant travel, and on either side, as 
far as the eye could see, the grass had 
been eaten off by passing cattle that 
thrived well on the prairie grass. You 
may know we went slowly, for the 
round-trip from Nebraska City to 
Denver consumed three months. The 



THE PIONEERS 83 

event in the life of the 'bull- whackers' 
was the passing of the overland stage. 
The freighters , who used slowly to 
trudge along the way up the Platte 
valley, driving from four to six yoke 
of patient oxen, every day watched 
eagerly for the old stage. They looked 
upon the four-horse and six-horse over- 
land coach as a vehicle distanced only 
by the lightning express train/ 7 

The death of Lieutenant Governor 
Hopewell in May, 1911, brought forth 
from the press of Nebraska biographical 
sketches of a remarkable pioneer career, 
that portrayed the development of the 
West. The novelist of the future will 
find his material for a stirring story of 
this section of the country in such a life 
of action. From Indiana to Texas, 
from Texas to Missouri, from Missouri 
to Nebraska — in the army and on the 
plains, and withal, the attainment of a 
college education. I quote this state- 
ment to call to mind a young man's 
employment in the 60's: u He then 
became a steamboat-hand on the Mis- 
souri, between St. Joseph and Omaha, 



84 THE HILLS OF PERU 

and later became a 'bull whacker/ 
driving six yokes of oxen for a govern- 
ment freighting outfit from Ft 
Leavenworth, Kansas, to Fort Laramie, 
Wyoming. " 

"While Peru was not on the main line 
of the Oregon Trail, there are features 
in its landscape that point the traveler 
westward. Let me remind my readers 
of the ancient anecdote of Mahomet, 
which one of Peru's hills suggests. He 
made his followers believe that he could 
call a hill to him, and when he called 
again and again and the hill stood still, 
he not a whit abashed, said, "If the hill 
will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet 
will go to the hill." Xow, the dauntless 
pioneers of Peru, sometime in the dim 
past, outdid the bold prophet. They 
called the coveted hill, and it came — 
"Pike's Peak" by name. 

One does not need to go very far from 
Peru to find one of the old freight roads. 
What Peru school-boy today can tell 
where the cumberous wagons used to 
pass on their long tedious journey from 
the south to Nebraska Citv, and west- 



THE PIONEERS 85 

ward? Let him call to mind the long 
ridge four or five miles west of Peru, 
which is what its name would indicate, 
"Highland." He may follow this ridge 
for many miles northward and south- 
ward. Like the Mohawk ridge in Xew 
York, it was the beaten trail for the 
Indians, keeping well out of the ravines 
and up from the lowlands. Then fol- 
lowed the days when it was widened into 
a wagon road, and today some of our 
best traveled roads follow it. Highland 
Church stands upon it. It is a divide 
for at least three water systems that we 
know — Buck Creek, Honey Creek, and 
the Xemaha. Any pioneer grandfather 
living among the hills of Peru can tell 
you across what farms the road ran, 
and perchance he himself drove one of 
the freight wagons, hauling corn to the 
forts in the Platte country, or flour to 
Denver. Perhaps he was one of those 
teamsters who drew the flour from 
Green's mill, driving his oxen at a snail's 
pace as they pulled their thousand 
pounds of freight from the hollows onto 
the highland that led to the 'steam- 



86 THE HILLS OF PERU 

wagon road. One old settler whose 
farm lies west of Peru says he saw such 
loads passing by, when the oxen made 
five miles of the steep hill country in 
two days. Another pioneer had a 
country smithy upon this ridge, and 
made iron shoes for the oxen and horses 
of the freighters. 

The Peru pioneers early realized the 
importance of transportation facilities. 
They took advantage of future pros- 
pects to advertise the town where they 
could; to witness, the following from the 
catalogue of the Peru Nebraska State 
Normal School, 1872-3, printed at 
Brown ville by the Advertiser: 

U A daily line of stages runs between 
Peru and Nebraska City, Brownville 
and Watson, Missouri, connecting with 
the K. C, St. Jo. & C. B. R. R. at 
Watson, and the Mo. P. R. R. at Ne- 
braska City. It is expected that the 
B. & Ft. K. R. R., running within 
one mile of the school, and the Trunk 
R. R., running through the village, will 
be completed this year, making the 
school accessible by rail from most parts 



THE PIONEERS 87 

of the state." The abbreviations are 
given unexpanded as they appear in 
the original. U B. & Ft. K. R. R." 
represented the Brownville and Fort 
Kearney railroad, which the people of 
Brownville have reason to remember. 
The remnants of the abandoned rail- 
road-bed still appear here and there in 
a grade along Honey creek, south of 
Peru. Considerable has been written 
concerning this incident in Nebraska's 
history. 

Honey Creek is a stream that enters 
into Peru history from the beginning of 
the settlement. Some of the very first 
settlers took up their homesteads along 




88 THE HILLS OF PERU 

the wooded stream, which finds its way 
into the Missouri River at a place now 
called Woodsiding, near the Walnut 
Grove schoolhouse and the Peru Coal 
mine. The creek itself is nowhere large, 
but its numerous tributaries head in 
springs, and the Honey Creek system 
drains many miles of farm land south of 
Peru. 

Along its course among the hills on 
the south, the growth of timber is dense, 
and there are spots that have the over- 
grown appearance of a country never 
opened to settlement. Here the young 
naturalist may enjo} r rare wild plant 
life and observe shy birds in profusion. 
One of the sources of Honey Creek is 
found in a deep cool spring that has 
long supplied the water for cattle on 
Edward Lash's farm, six miles south- 
east of Peru. Another such spring is 
on a farm owned by William Daily, and 
still another tributary has its beginning 
in a spring on Dr. J. F. Neal's farm 
adjoining Peru. The earliest settlers 
tell us that Honev Creek received its 



THE PIONEERS 



89 



name because of the many swarms of 
wild bees that were found there. 

This sketch would hardly be complete 
without mention of Mt. Vernon. This 
euphonious and appropriate name has 
attached itself to the environs of Peru, 
appearing in the name Mt Vernon 
Cemetery. The name antedates that of 
Peru, by a few months. A townsite 
company surveyed and platted a town 
called Mt. Vernon, on a piece of land 
adjoining Peru on the south-east. "Mt. 
Vernon obtained the post office, but 
after a feeble attempt to make a town, 
the attempt was abandoned, and Peru 
obtained the post office and soon made 
a thrifty growth." 




Delzel 

Oak 




CHAPTER VI. 

An Indian Story. 

N my quest for pioneer his- 
tory, I have come upon an 
*■ Indian story that has awak- 
ened in me the old fascina- 
tion of the blood-curdling tales that our 
grandfathers and grandmothers used 
to relate , as they lived over again their 
frontier days with the Indians. It is 
perhaps an improvement over the past 
that the children of the household are 
less often entertained nowadays by the 
stories of Indian tragedies, stories that 
used to make the waking and dreaming 
hours of the night terrifying with vis- 
sions of dusky, stealthy savages. 

Truly, Silvia Hall, known to Peruv- 
ians as "Grandma Horn," was a woman 
of heroic mould, when after passing 
through the horrors of an Indian massa- 
cre in Illinois, she dared to come yet 
farther west into the heart of the 
Indian country. She and her brothers 
and sisters, were living with their par- 

90 



AN INDIAN STORY 91 

ents in a tiny settlement on Indian 
Creek, some fifteen miles north of 
Ottawa, Illinois, in 1832, when the last 
Indian outrage in that state occurred, 
on the afternoon of Monday, May 21st. 
It was at the time when Black Hawk, 
the noted Indian Chief, was at war 
with the whites, and the Illinois Volun- 
teers under Major Stillman, were chas- 
ing him into Wisconsin. Abraham Lin- 
coln was one of the captains under 
Stillman's command. The battle of 
Stillman' s Run gave an overwhelming 
victory to the Sacs Indians, and they 
sent war parties all over the country. 

In this story there also appears the 
proverbial "friendly Indian." Shabbona, 
a friendly chief of the Pottawattamies, 
performed a herioc deed for the whites. 
"Leaving his home where Paw Paw, 
Illinois, now stands, he rode for two 
hundred miles, warning all whites to 
flee to the nearest forts for protection. 
He was an elderly and fleshy man, and 
riding day and night, he k lied his pony 
and utterly exhausted himself in his 
noble attempt to save the whites . ? 



92 THE HILLS OF PERU 

The little settlement on Indian Creek 
received the warning and fled for refuge 
to Fort Ottawa, — all but one, a doubting 
Thomas, named William Davis, an 
Indian hater, who scorned the warning 
and refused to flee. For several days 
all things seemed quiet, no Indians 
were seen, and Davis persuaded several 
families, among them the Halls, to re- 
turn to the settlement. But it was 
only the lull that precedes the storm! 
Almost all of the men were in the field 
planting corn not far from the houses. 
The remainder of the colony were at 
the home of Air. Davis, which stood 
close to the creek. Suddenly an Indi- 
an's head appeared above the bank of 
the creek! It was Ke-was-see, seeking 
vengeance upon Davis, who had struck 
him for a triv al cause a short time be- 
fore. Behind him there followed a 
band of howling savages. The alarmed 
settlers had no time to resist, and one 
after another was slain. The first to 
go were a Mr. Pettigrew and his wife. 
Then some of the children were shot, 
while others were taken bv the heels 



AX INDIAN STORY 93 

and their brains dashed out on trees and 
stones. Airs. Hall, ill in her bed, Air. 
Hall and two children were killed. One 
brother escaped by jumping down the 
river-bank and hiding in the thicket. 
while still another brother and the 
men in the field reached the fort at 
Ottawa. 

As to the heroine of this sketch. 
Silvia Hall, and her sister Rachel, aged 
respectively sixteen and eighteen years, 
they were taken prisoners by the In- 
dians, carried a mile or more up the 
creek to where the ponies were tied, 
and each girl was placed on a pony, 
the whole party then starting toward 
the northwest. They traveled until 
late at night, when a two hours' rest 
was taken and then the weary ride was 
resumed until the afternoon of the next 
day, when another halt was made, and 
the first meal, of beans and acorns, eaten. 
That night they came to wigwams, and 
here they paused for a pow-wow. "The 
girls were forced to sit on blankets, 
with one-half of their faces painted 
black and the other half red, while 



94 THE HILLS OF PERU 

their captors gave the scalp dance, 
brandishing in the girls' faces the 
scalps of their father, mother and 
sister. " From the talk of the Indians, 
Sylvia understood the plan to be to 
kill her, but to take her more preposses- 
sing sister Rachel for an Indian's squaw. 
The ride continued for seven days more, 
under the guard of squaws, and then 
the girls were given over to the Winne- 
bagoes. Here their freedom was finally 
secured through the Indian agent at 
Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, and they 
were returned to their brother, who 
had gone in pursuit of them. Upon 
the spot of the massacre, Rachel Hall 
Munson afterwards erected a monument 
with the names of those massacred in- 
scribed upon it. 

Such then was the past of one of 
Peru's pioneer women. She was di- 
minutive in stature, and retiring in 
disposition. She seldom alluded to the 
sad past. In 1856 she came to Peru as 
the wife of William S. Horn, a Protes- 
tant Methodist minister. He it was 
whom history credits with preaching 



AX IXDIAX STORY 



95 



the first sermon in Peru precinct. They 
settled upon the homestead one-half 
mile south of Peru, known later as the 
Mc Adams place. At the age of eighty- 
five Airs. Horn died, and her obituary 
brought to mind once more what pio- 
neer experiences stood for, as typified 
in the life of this one woman, who had 
been born of pioneer parents, and 
faced frontier conditions in Kentucky. 
Indiana. Illinois and Nebraska. 




CHAPTER VII. 



Suxboxxet Days. 




*RE YOU the sort of person 
that enjoys finding } x our way 
through devious paths and 
overgrown trails, or would 
you steer entirety clear of roads and 
pathways and cut across country to 
spy out some untrodden way for your- 
self? If so, then you are a person of my 
own kind. Then we two would have 
been congenial pioneer rovers. Per- 
haps it is an instinct that harks back to 
our pioneer ancestors to love roads that 
are not much more than bridle paths, 
to stop at will and gather hazel-nuts in 
the dense brushy undergrowths, break- 
ing our way through bushes everywhere, 
sending the birds fluttering from their 
thicket retreats, stumbling over twisted 
grape-vines and tangled morning 
glories sentineled by the scarlet sumach. 



96 



SUXBOXXET DAYS 97 

"Mr. Sumach sparkles where above the vines 

he stands 
With seven lighted candles and a gold sconce 

in his hands! 
Mr. Sumach sparkles in his livery of the light — 
But across the far-off valleys 
Sister summer sings good night! 

Mr. Sumach's glowing where the old fields lie 

at rest, 
A blaze of carmine glory on the red glow of his 

breast! 
Mr. Sumach's glowing 

In the last glow of the year, 
Ere the sweet smile of the summer 

Turns her memory to a tear!" 

Could we but have been one of the 
sunbonnet brigade that went a plum- 
ming with our pioneer grandmothers! 
We should have started out betimes in 
the morning, a troup of husky children, 
with bags and baskets, for Honey Creek 
or Buck Creek to gather the large, yellow 
wild plums. Our grandmothers availed 
themselves of every kind of wild fruit, 
which according to their testimony, 
was better in those days than it is today. 
The plums were thin-skinned and meaty, 
and often the ground was carpeted with 



98 THE HILLS OF PERU 

yellow and red fruit. The grape-vines 
that climbed the bushes and trees, hung 
heavy with wild grapes, the summer 
variety as large as our Concords today, 
and the winter grape small and delic- 
ious in October after the first frost. 
Without stint the good mothers pre- 
pared the fruit for winter use. In the 
large brass kettles they cooked two and 
three gallons of preserves at once, and 
put it away in stone jars unsealed. The 
grapes were packed in sugar, layer upon 
layer. The plums were scalded and set 
away in barrels. The wild mulberry, 
found in such abundance on the islands, 
and the wild crab-apple were dried for 
winter pies. The dried elderberries 
might be cooked with the grapes, or 
used for tea or wine. Wild gooseberries, 
without thorns, were gathered also, nor 
were the haw-berries overlooked. Occa- 
sionally a peach or an apple-wagon came 
over from Missouri. The children ran 
into the road at the welcome sight of the 
apples bobbing on a stick. 

Now let the " company " arrive in 
arge numbers, unannounced, driving 



SUNBONXET DAYS 99 

long distances to stay over Sunday and 
attend church! Beside the abundant 
food supply in the cellar, there was also 
hearty hospitality in the hearts. Quails 
and prairie chickens were easily obtained 
for meat. The river abounded in large 
cat-fish, the weight of which the modern 
chronicler dare not tell for fear of 
jeopardizing the veracity of the pioneers. 
And then there was the venison! In- 
deed, it was not uncommon for the deer 
to graze with the cattle. The boy who 
went after the cows in the evening would 
see the deer scampering away. Often 
from the rafters of the early settlers' 
homes there hung the heavy smoked 
venison hams. 

In those pioneer days the mothers 
knew the necessity of storing the chests 
and cupboards with medicinal herbs. 
The herb teas of sage, spearmint, cat- 
nip, sassafras and pennyroyal all had 
their season and occasion for administra- 
tion. Every child to reach maturity 
normally must undergo the course of 
herb concoctions. 

We must remember that for some 



100 THE HILLS OF PERU 

time the country around Peru was 
unfenced. The cattle roamed at will 
irrespective of ownership. The roads 
did not turn at right angles; for ex- 
ample, on the bottom-lands north of 
Peru there were roads running diagon- 
ally from the bluffs to the river. The 
tall grass reached the head of the pedes- 
trian, the deer flitted across his path, 
and coveys of quails rose almost within 
reach. 

The pioneer period of Peru is not re- 
mote in the true sense of the word, and 
yet many household customs have 
never entered the experience of the last 
generation of children. What girl of 
today has seen her mother moulding 
tallow candles? And yet, but one gen- 
eration back, and our mothers saw^ 
kerosene lamps come into use to take 
the place of the candle and the "grease- 
lamp." A Peru housewife was recalling 
the time when she saw her first lamp, 
which came from Brownville in the 
? 60s. Well do I remember hearing a 
Peru farmer say, "No kerosene lamps 
for us! They're too dangerous. We 



SUNBONNET DAYS 101 

use candles, and they can't explode." 
What lad of today slumbers in a 
trundle-bed? The mention of this space- 
saving couch recalls old-time mem- 
ories for those who were boys a genera- 
tion ago. When sleeping apartments 
were scarce, the children's trundle- 
bed was rolled under the high-posted 
"roped-bed" for the day, and there 
concealed by the bright chintz bed- 
flounce. Any child would enjoy hear- 
ing the story, as I heard it, of a pioneer 
brother and sister, who were left alone 
in the house one night, and in their 
fright they managed to crawl into the 
trundle-bed under the large one and 
spend the night there. 

In a very old coUection of songs, I 
came upon the familiar time-worn tune, 
"The Trundle-Bed Song." 

u Tho the house was held by strangers, 
All remained the same within, 
Just as when a child I rambled 
Up and down, and out and in. 
To the garret dark ascending, 
Once a source of childish dread, 
Peering through the misty cobwebs, 
Lo! I saw my trundle-bed." 



102 THE HILLS OF PERU 

In the beautiful valley in Peru there 
resides an aged lady whose venerated 
life has almost spanned a century. 
Could we but procure the memoirs of 
the life of Grandma Majors, we should 
indeed possess a history of a woman's 
part in the pioneer period. We have 
come to realize that biography is the 
basis of all historical structures. 'The 
chronicles of the nations are composed 
of the sayings and doings of their men 
and women." 

Not every pioneer was so fortunate as 
to be able to tread daily upon a fine rag 
carpet, which rebounded at every step 
from the thick straw filling that was 
spread beneath it. Very nearly every 
carpet ever woven in Peru was made by 
a little woman who came to the village 
at such an early date that her house is 
counted the oldest dwelling remaining 
in Peru. It was she who wove the rag- 
carpet for all the homes, and unfolded 
to the school children, who loitered by 
her loom, the mysteries of the "hit and 
miss" and the gorgeous "stripe." Her 
weaving came to an end in rather an 



SUNBONNET DAYS 103 

unusual way, as she related to me one 
spring day when seated in her garden. 
"I promised myself if Cleveland was 
elected that I would never weave any 
more, and I kept my promise/ 7 she said. 
Where is the dear old pink-cheeked 
wax doll, whose perishable beauty was 
beset by the baby's fingers, the crack- 
ing cold of winter and the melting heat 
of summer! And what has become of 
the bright slatted sunbonnets, with cape 
and frill to cover half the back! And 
the Shaker-bonnet like the top of a 
mover's wagon! In their recesses the 
face of the modest pioneer woman was 
hidden away. From the sight and sound 
of the world they were indeed a secure 
retreat. Like the morning-glory that 
shaded our porches with gay purple 
and pink blossoms, the bright slatted 
sunbonnet is now but a radiant memory. 





CHAPTER VIII. 

1870—1911. 

^N THE morning of May 29, 
1911, there was dedicated in 
Peru a monument to mark 
the site of the first com- 
mencement exercises of the Nebraska 
State Normal School. The beautiful 
campus was the scene of a gathering of 
pioneers and students. The first presi- 
dent of the school and his wife, Dr. and 
Mrs. J. M. McKenzie, stood once more 
upon the ground where they had stood 
forty-one years before, and viewed the 
work which their hands had begun. A 
member of the first graduating class 
and two members of the first State 
Board of Education were present. 
Music composed for the first commence- 
ment was re-sung upon this occasion, 
and the gentleman who presided over 
the exercises was the first president of 
the Philomathean Literary Society in 
1868. 
This dedicatory exercise marked the 

10t 



1817 — 1911 



105 



occasion of the first commencement in 
any higher institution of learning in 
Nebraska. At the close of the program 
a glacial bowlder was presented to the 
school, with the following comments 
by the author: 

Some dreams are only dreams, but 
some are realized. Only those who 
dream dreams and see visions ever move 
the world. The first commencement, 
which took place upon this campus, 
must have been attempted in its simple 
beginnings because two or three people 
could dream dreams, and could see far 
beyond the small group of earnest souls 
gathered together upon the shadeless 
prairies to something vastly more real 
and imposing. Whether they reared in 
their imagination a picture of acorns 
grown into giant trees and piles of 
brick and stone, we do not know, but 
one thing is certain — u a great ethical 
principle was stir- 
ring" in the minds of 
two or three people. 

Allen White in his 
recent great novel 




106 THE HILLS OF PERU 

says, u The pioneers do not always go 
to the wilderness in lust of land. They 
sometimes go to satisfy their souls. " 

There are beginnings and beginnings 
of great movements among men. Some 
only are holy. The greatest endow- 
ment that any institution may know is 
a beginning that is a consecrated holy 
conception. That the Peru State Nor- 
mal had such a beginning should be a 
source of unending joy to its students. 
What is an endowment in money or in 
worldly wealth for a school as compared 
with unselfish idealistic motives that 
breathe into an institution, as it were, 
the "breath of life!" 

When men reach old age, they be- 
come introspective. They live largely 
in the past, and to them the far-away 
days are more vivid than the near-by 
present. Communities are like men 
whose rich ripe years bring them the 
leisure to look about and review the 
past. It is not strange, then, that in the 
southeastern corner of Nebraska, where 
the state has begun to enjoy comparative 
old age, that men and organizations 



1817 



1911 



107 



have begun to reflect upon the past, 
and to say , "This happened here/' and 
"This happened here/ 7 Human nature 
has a weakness for glorying in primal 
distinctions and superlatives. Where 
the Pilgrims first landed is as sacred to 
Americans as a shrine. 

We people of the middle-west have 
long looked to the East for a true appre- 
ciation of things historic. The awaken- 
ing to our own historic significance has 
been slow, but at last it has reached 
Nebraska. Upon this spot today the 
Philomathean Societv marks a founda- 




108 THE HILLS OF PERU 

tion stone of the nation, for is not edu- 
cation the corner-stone of a republic! 

This glacial bowlder was found, a 
solitary, stranded, granite block, a few 
miles southwest of Peru. With con- 
siderable difficulty it was brought to 
this spot, to mark the site of the first 
commencement, held here in 1870. We 
hope before many days, through the 
efforts of Alumni Philomatheans, to 
have an appropriately inscribed bronze 
tablet placed upon it. The boulder now 
becomes the property of the Peru State 
Normal School. In daj^s gone by, the 
east has contributed to Nebraska its 
culture, the south its chivalry, and in 
ages preceding, the far north contrib- 
uted its glacial bowlder. It is the hope 
of the Philomathean Society that here 
the stone may remain unmoved, at 
least until another Ice Age, in commem- 
oration of the first commencement and 
the first Literary Society in a Nebraska 
higher institution of learning. 



Snbex, 



Acorns 105 

Alumni 108 

Apples 98 

Atchinson 79 

Band 11 

Blue River 18, 72 

Boat Landing 1. 32. 65, 68 

Bottom Lands 30. 66 

Bowlder 105. 108 

Brick 35. 39. 40 

Brick. Moulding 36-38 

Brick. Burning 39 

Bridge 5 

Brownvhle 3. 12, 60. 72. 86, 100 

Brownville & Fort Kearney R. R 8< 

Buck Creek xii. 85 

•• Bull-Whackers" 83. 84 

Burlington R. R xii, 9 

Camp Creek xii 

Candles 100 

Carpets 102 

Cattle 100 

Cave 24 

Cemetery. Mt. Vernon xiv. 12. 74, 88 

Chicago & :North- Western R. R 9 

Church. Episcopal 29. 31. 32-34. 49. 51, 52 

"The Old Church." a Poem. 3 

Church. Christian 58 

Church. Old M. E 63 

Cincinnati 60 

Clay 35. 42 

Coasting 26 

Commencement. First 104 

Cottonwood 3. 57. 62. 63. 68 

Corn 69. 85 

Crab- Apple 98 

Creek 5 

Cross 32, 56 

Deer 99. 100 

Denver 79, 82, 85 

Depot 35. 44 

Dolls 103 

Drainage Ditch 1 

Elm 62 

Elderberry 98 



INDEX 

Ferry-boat 12 

Fishermen 13 

Flag-raising 47 

Flood Plain 17 

Flour 1, 72, 85 

Fort Benton 8 

Fort Kearney 79 

Fort Laramie 84 

Fort Randall 9 

Fourth of July 48, 73 

Freighters 72, 82, 83, 85, 86 

Glacial Bowlder 105, 108 

Gold 78, 79 

Gooseberry 98 

Grapes 98 

Hannibal 75 

Hannibal & St. Joseph R. R 9 

Haw-berry 98 

Hazelnuts 98 

Herbs, Medicinal 99 

Highland 85 

Hills 15-17, 46. 62 

Honey Creek 85, 87, 88 

Illinois 74. 75, 90. 95 

Indian Agent 8. 18, 32, 72 

Indians 8, 18, 23, 28, 72, 85. 90, 91, 94 

Indian Hill 15, 18, 22. 23 

Indiana 71. 83, 95 

Iowa xiv, 15 

Kansas City 9, 79 

Kansas 18. 76 

Kiln 39, 40 

Kentucky 95 

Landmark 4. 29, 31 

Leavenworth 79 

Libertyville 80 

Lincoln 10 

Lincoln, Abraham 8. 91 

Loess 23 

Lombardy Poplar 64 

Lumber 20, 65, 73 

McKissick's Island 66, 71 

Main Street 4, 14, 31 

Merchandise 3, 13 

Mill, Flour 6, 18, 43, 68, 69-71 

Mill, Saw 65, 66, 67 

Minersville (Otoe City) 72 

Mississippi River 75 

Missionaries 8 



INDEX 

Missouri 3, 71, 75, 98 

Missouri River 18, 20, 60, 66, 78, 79, 83 

Missourian 3, 49 

Mohawk River 85 

Mt. Vernon 88 

Mormons 8 

Mulberry 98 

Nebraska 17, 60, 95, 106 . . 

Nebraska City 79, 82, 84 

Negro 8, 13 

Nemaha River 85 

Normal School xiv. 14, 43, 46, 64, 86, 104, 106, 108 

Oak 28, 62, 64 

Off-bears 38 

Ohio - 59 

Omaha 9, 50, 60, 79, 84 

Oregon Trail 84 

Organ 54 

Otoe Indians 18 

Ottawa 91 

Oxen 72. 75, 82, 85, 86 

Paint 43 

Paths 23, 25, 28, 29, 31, 91 

Peru xiv, 9, 14. 16, 35, 50, 60, 65, 74, 71, 80. 89 

Peru, Illinois 74, 76 

Peru Coal Mine 87 

Philomathean Literary Society 104, 107 

Phvsician 80 

Pikes' Peak xii. 29-30, 84 

Pike's Peak. Colorado 78, 80, 82 

Pioneers 19. 51. 62, 

65. 72. 74. 75, 81, 83. 85. 86. 95, 97, 99, 102, 103, 106 

Pittsburgh 59 

Plains xii, 17, 79 

Platte 79, 85 

Plums 97 

Prairies 65. 76. 79, 82, 105 

Prairie Chicken 99 

Preachers 21, 94 

Post Office, Old 4, 31 

Quarter Centennial History 50, 52, 56 

Quails 99 

Roads 4, 100 

St. Deroin 72 

St. Joseph 6, 8, 9, 11, 79, 84 

St. Louis 8 

St. Mary's Church 51' 52 

School, District 19-22, 28 



INDEX 

Soil 24 

Songs 14, 101 

Sonora 12 

Sonora Island 65 

Sioux City 9 

Springs 88 

Steamboat 1, 4, 6-8, 9, 10, 12, 32, 67, 69, 72, 83 

"Steam-Wagon Road" 82, 86 

Sumach 96 

Sunbonnets 103 

Sycamore 62 

Teachers 14, 20, 21 

Texas 83 

Trees 62, 63 

Trundle Bed 101 

Union Pacific R. R 9 

United States Mail 44 

Venison 99 

Walnuts 64 

Walnut Grove School House 87 

War, Civil 49 

War, Mexican 49 

Warehouse xii. 2, 68, 73 

Water 24 

Watson 12, 86 

Wells 24, 25 

Willows xii, 1 

Wisconsin 91, 94 

Woodsiding 87 



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